NONVERBAL
COMMUNICATION IN
HUMAN INTERACTION
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NONVERBAL
COMMUNICATION IN
HUMAN INTERACTION
EIGHTH
EDITION
Mark L. Knapp
The University of Texas at Austin
Judith A. Hall
Northeastern University
Terrence G. Horgan
University of Michigan, Flint
Australia Brazil Japan Korea Mexico Singapore Spain United Kingdom United States
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Nonverbal Communication in Human
Interaction, Eighth Edition
Mark L. Knapp, Judith A. Hall and
Terrence G. Horgan
Publisher: Monica Eckman
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©2014,2010,2007 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning
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BRIEF CONTENTS
PREFACE xv
PART I ANINTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL
COMMUNICATION 1
CHAPTER 1Nonverbal Communication: Basic Perspectives 3
CHAPTER 2The Roots of Nonverbal Behavior 29
CHAPTER 3The Ability to Receive and Send Nonverbal Signals 59
PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT 89
CHAPTER 4The Effects of the Environment on Human Communication 91
CHAPTER 5The Effects of Territory and Personal Space on Human
Communication 123
PART III THE COMMUNICATORS 151
CHAPTER 6The Effects of Physical Characteristics on Human Communication 153
v
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PART IV THE COMMUNICATORSBEHAVIOR 197
CHAPTER 7The Effects of Gesture and Posture on Human Communication 199
CHAPTER 8The Effects of Touch on Human Communication 231
CHAPTER 9The Effects of the Face on Human Communication 258
CHAPTER 10 The Effects of Eye Behavior on Human Communication 295
CHAPTER 11 The Effects of Vocal Cues That Accompany Spoken Words 323
PART V COMMUNICATING IMPORTANT MESSAGES 357
CHAPTER 12 Using Nonverbal Behavior in Daily Interaction 359
CHAPTER 13 Nonverbal Messages in Special Contexts 395
REFERENCES 421
NAME INDEX 493
SUBJECT INDEX 508
vi BRIEF CONTENTS
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CONTENTS
PREFACE xv
PART IANINTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL
COMMUNICATION 1
CHAPTER 1Nonverbal Communication: Basic Perspectives 3
Perspective 1: Defining Nonverbal Communication 8
Processing Nonverbal Information 9
Awareness and Control 10
Perspective 2: Classifying Nonverbal Behavior 10
The Communication Environment 11
The CommunicatorsPhysical Characteristics 11
Body Movement and Position 12
Perspective 3: Nonverbal Communication in the Total
Communication Process 14
Repeating 15
Conflicting 15
Complementing 18
Substituting 19
Accenting/Moderating 19
Regulating 19
Perspective 4: Historical Trends in Nonverbal Research 21
Perspective 5: Nonverbal Communication in Everyday Life 25
Summary 27
vii
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CHAPTER 2The Roots of Nonverbal Behavior 29
The Development of Nonverbal Behavior across Evolutionary Time 31
Evidence from Sensory Deprivation 32
Evidence from Infants 37
Evidence from Twin Studies 40
Evidence from Nonhuman Primates 44
Evidence from Multicultural Studies 52
Summary 57
CHAPTER 3The Ability to Receive and Send Nonverbal Signals 59
Development and Improvement of Nonverbal Skills 61
Is It Good to Have More Accurate Knowledge of Nonverbal
Communication? 64
Measuring the Accuracy of Decoding and Encoding Nonverbal Cues 65
Standardized Tests of Decoding Ability 68
Personal Factors Influencing the Accuracy of Decoding Nonverbal Cues 71
Self-Appraisals and Explicit Knowledge of Nonverbal Cues 72
Gender 73
Age 73
General Cognitive Ability 74
Other Personal Correlates 75
Substance Abuse 77
Culture 78
Task Factors Affecting Nonverbal Decoding Accuracy 78
Characteristics of Accurate Nonverbal Senders 79
Putting Decoding and Encoding Together 82
On Being an Observer of Nonverbal Communication 83
The Fallibility of Human Perception 85
Summary 86
PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT 89
CHAPTER 4The Effects of the Environment on Human Communication 91
Perceptions of Our Surroundings 94
Perceptions of Formality 94
Perceptions of Warmth 95
Perceptions of Privacy 96
Perceptions of Familiarity 96
viii CONTENTS
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Perceptions of Constraint 96
Perceptions of Distance 96
Reacting to Environments 97
Perceptions of Time 98
The Natural Environment 100
Other People in the Environment 104
Architectural Design and Movable Objects 105
Color 108
Sound 111
Lighting 113
Movable Objects 114
Structure and Design 116
Regulating Environments and Communication 121
Summary 122
CHAPTER 5The Effects of Territory and Personal Space on Human
Communication 123
The Concept of Territoriality 123
Territoriality: Invasion and Defense 125
Density and Crowding 129
The Effects of High Density on Human Beings 131
Coping with High Density 132
Conversational Distance 133
Sex 137
Age 137
Cultural and Ethnic Background 138
Topic or Subject Matter 139
Setting for the Interaction 140
Physical Characteristics 140
Attitudinal and Emotional Orientation 140
Characteristics of the Interpersonal Relationship 141
Personality Characteristics 141
Seating Behavior and Spatial Arrangements in Small Groups 142
Leadership 143
Dominance 144
Task 144
Sex and Acquaintance 145
IntroversionExtraversion 147
Conclusion 147
Summary 148
CONTENTS ix
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PART III THE COMMUNICATORS 151
CHAPTER 6The Effects of Physical Characteristics on Human
Communication 153
Our Body: Its General Attractiveness 154
Dating and Marriage 156
On the Job 159
Persuading Others 160
Self-Esteem 161
Antisocial Behavior 161
The Power of Physical Attractiveness: Some Important Qualifications 162
The Effects of Interaction 162
The Effects of Context 163
Stereotypes Are Not Always Valid 164
Attractiveness over Time 164
Our Body: Its Specific Features 165
Attractiveness and the Face 165
Judgments of the Face 167
Body Shape 169
Height 174
Body Image 177
Body Color 178
Body Smell 179
Body Hair 182
Our Body: Clothes and Other Artifacts 186
Functions of Clothing 188
Clothing as Information About the Person 190
Effects of Clothing on the Wearer 190
Clothing and Personality 191
Artifacts and Body Decorations 192
Summary 194
PART IV THE COMMUNICATORSBEHAVIOR 197
CHAPTER 7The Effects of Gesture and Posture on Human Communication 199
Speech-Independent Gestures 201
Speech-Related Gestures 211
Referent-Related Gestures 212
Gestures Indicating a Speakers Relationship to the Referent 212
xCONTENTS
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Punctuation Gestures 214
Interactive Gestures 214
Gesture Frequency 216
The Coordination of Gesture, Posture, and Speech 219
Self-Synchrony 219
Interaction Synchrony 222
Summary 229
CHAPTER 8The Effects of Touch on Human Communication 231
Touching and Human Development 232
Who Touches Whom, Where, When, and How Much? 234
Different Types of Touching Behavior 237
The Meanings and Impact of Interpersonal Touch 241
Touch as Positive Affect 241
Touch as Negative Affect 241
Touch and Discrete Emotions 242
Touch as Play 242
Touch as Influence 243
Touch as Interaction Management 244
Touch as Physiological Stimulus 244
Touch as Interpersonal Responsiveness 244
Touch as Task Related 245
Touch as Healing 245
Touch as Symbolism 247
Contextual Factors in the Meaning of Interpersonal Touch 249
Touch Can Be a Powerful Nonconscious Force in Interaction 250
Self-Touching 253
Summary 256
CHAPTER 9The Effects of the Face on Human Communication 258
The Face and Personality Judgments 258
The Face and Interaction Management 259
Channel Control 260
Complementing or Qualifying Other Behavior 260
Replacing Spoken Messages 260
The Face and Expressions of Emotion 261
Display Rules and Facial Emotion Expression 262
The Facial Emotion Controversy 266
Measuring the Face 268
CONTENTS xi
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Measuring Emotion Recognition 274
Emotions Inferred from the Face 278
Physiology and the Face 285
Internalizers and Externalizers 285
Facial Expression and Health 285
Facial Feedback 286
The Social Impact of Facial Expressions 289
Summary 293
CHAPTER 10 The Effects of Eye Behavior on Human Communication 295
Gaze and Mutual Gaze 296
Functions of Gazing 297
Regulating the Flow of Communication 298
Monitoring Feedback 300
Reflecting Cognitive Activity 301
Expressing Emotions 301
Communicating the Nature of the Interpersonal Relationship 306
Conditions Influencing Gazing Patterns 309
Distance 309
Physical Characteristics 310
Personal Characteristics and Personality 310
Psychopathology 313
Topics and Tasks 314
Cultural and Racial Background and Racial Attitudes 317
Pupil Dilation and Constriction 318
Summary 321
CHAPTER 11 The Effects of Vocal Cues That Accompany Spoken Words 323
The Relative Importance of Channels 324
The Ingredients and Methods of Studying Paralanguage 326
Vocal Cues and Speaker Recognition 330
Vocal Cues and Personality 333
Vocal Cues and Group Perceptions 336
Vocal Cues and Judgments of Sociodemographic Characteristics 337
Sex 337
Age 339
Social Class or Status 339
Characteristics of Recipients 339
xii CONTENTS
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Vocal Cues and Emotion 341
Vocal Cues, Comprehension, and Persuasion 346
Vocal Cues, Comprehension, and Retention 347
Vocal Cues and Persuasion 348
Vocal Cues and Turn Taking in Conversations 349
Turn Yielding 350
Turn Requesting 350
Turn Maintaining 351
Turn Denying 351
Hesitations, Pauses, Silence, and Speech 351
Location or Placement of Pauses 352
Types of Pauses 352
Reasons Why Pauses Occur 353
Influence and Coordination within the Dyad 354
Silence 354
Summary 355
PART VCOMMUNICATING IMPORTANT MESSAGES 357
CHAPTER 12 Using Nonverbal Behavior in Daily Interaction 359
Communicating Intimacy 360
Courtship Behavior 360
Quasi-Courtship Behavior 363
Liking Behavior or Immediacy 364
Being Close in Close Relationships 364
Mutual Influence 367
Communicating Dominance and Status 369
Managing the Interaction 373
Greeting Behavior 373
Turn-Taking Behavior 375
Leave-Taking Behavior 378
Communicating Our Identity 379
Personal Identity 380
Social Identity 382
Deceiving Others 387
A Perspective for Communicators 392
Summary 393
CONTENTS xiii
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CHAPTER 13 Nonverbal Messages in Special Contexts 395
Advertising Messages 396
Political Messages 401
TeacherStudent Messages 405
Cultural Messages 408
High-Contact versus Low-Contact Cultures 408
Individualism versus Collectivism 409
High-Context versus Low-Context Cultures 410
Similarities across Cultures 410
Therapeutic Settings 411
Technology and Nonverbal Messages 414
Summary 419
REFERENCES 421
NAME INDEX 493
SUBJECT INDEX 508
xiv CONTENTS
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PREFACE
Normally, the final thing authors do in a preface is to thank those who have been
instrumental in the development of their book. Wed like to depart from that
tradition by starting with our heartfelt thanks to the thousands of students and
instructors who have used this book and provided feedback to us during the past
40 years. More than anyone else, you are responsible for the longevity of this
book. With this in mind, we undertook this eighth edition by putting what we
believe to be instructor and student needs at the forefront of our writing. As with
previous editions, we encourage you to let us know whether we have succeeded.
The fact that this book is coauthored is worth noting. One of us represents
the field of communication and the other two social psychology. This collabo-
ration, which requires the blending of two distinct perspectives, is symbolic of
the nonverbal literature we report in this volume. The theory and research
addressing nonverbal phenomena comes from scholars with a wide variety of
academic backgrounds and perspectivescommunication, counseling, psychology,
psychiatry, linguistics, sociology, management, speech, and others. Understanding
the nature of nonverbal communication is truly an interdisciplinary enterprise.
In revising this book, we retained the features that students and instructors
valued from the previous editions while adding and changing other things that we
believe will improve the book. One change that we hope students like is the inclu-
sion of text boxes in each chapter. These text boxes cover important, interesting,
or current topics relevant to the field of nonverbal communication. We recognize
how important photographs and drawings are in a book like this, so we have con-
tinued to use visual representations to aid comprehension of certain nonverbal
actions. Because an increasing amount of communication is mediated by some
form of technology, we have incorporated new research findings and topics in
that area that are relevant to the lives of students and teachers, such as Facebook,
online dating, and text messaging, to name a few.
In every new edition, we incorporate the most recent theory and research
while retaining definitive studies from the past. Readers will find that some areas
xv
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of study have fewer recent references than others. This simply means that there
hasnt been a lot of recent research in that area or that the recent work, in our
judgment, does not substantially change the conclusions from earlier studies. If
something we know about human behavior today was first revealed in a study
from 1958, we want readers to know that, and we will maintain the 1958 refer-
ence. Research on a particular topic often has an ebb and flow to it. During the
1960s and 1970s, the fear that a worldwide population boom would create terrible
problems spawned a lot of research on space, territory, and crowding. In recent
years, far less research has been done in this area. The study of gestures, on the
other hand, has gone from an area of relatively little research activity during the
1960s and 1970s to an area that is of primary interest to numerous scholars today.
Unlike past editions in which extensive bibliographies followed each chapter,
we have moved all the references to one bibliography in the back of the book.
Similar to previous editions, though, we have tried to retain a writing style that is
scientifically accurate as well as interesting to the reader. We are honored that our
book serves as both a textbook and a reference work. The Instructors Manual for
this book provides the information and imagination necessary for effective classroom
learning in nonverbal communication.
The book is divided into five parts. Part I introduces the reader to some funda-
mental ideas and addresses the following questions: What is nonverbal communi-
cation? How do verbal and nonverbal communication interrelate? What difference
does a knowledge of nonverbal communication make to your everyday life? Are
some people more skilled than others at communicating nonverbally? How did
they get that way? With this general perspective in mind, Parts II, III, and IV take
the reader through the nonverbal elements involved in any interaction: the environ-
ment within which the interaction occurs, the physical features of the interactants
themselves, and their behaviorgestures, touching, facial expressions, eye gazing,
and vocal sounds. Part V begins with a chapter focused on how all the separate
parts of an interaction combine as we seek to accomplish very common goals in
daily lifefor example, communicating who we are, communicating closeness and
distance, communicating varying degrees of status and power, deceiving others,
and effectively managing the back-and-forth flow of conversation. Chapter 13
examines nonverbal communication in the context of advertising, therapy, the
classroom, politics, culture, and technology. Throughout the book we repeatedly
point out how all interactants involved are likely to play a role in whatever behavior
is displayed by a single individualeven though this perspective is not always
adequately developed in the research we review.
Several helpful online tools are available for use with this text. The online
Instructors Resource Manual includes a sample schedule, chapter objectives,
discussion questions, test items, audiovisual resources, exercises, and out-of-class
assignments. The companion Web site features student self-quizzes. In addition,
you can choose to purchase this text with 4 months of free access to InfoTrac
®
College Edition, a world-class, online university library that offers the full text of
articles from almost 5,000 scholarly journals and popular publications updated
daily, going back more than 20 years. Students can also gain instant access to
critical-thinking and paper-writing tools through InfoWrite. Your subscription
now includes InfoMarks
®
instant access to virtual readers drawing from the vast
xvi PREFACE
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deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
InfoTrac College Edition library and hand selected to work with your books. You
can access your online resources at www.cengagebrain.com/. For more information
about these online resources, contact your local Cengage Learning representative.
All of us would like to thank Susanna Tippett for the time, energy, and
accuracy she contributed in preparing the bibliography as well as those (Melissa
Grey and Tom Voss) who reviewed a couple of our text boxes. Mark and Judy are
especially thankful for the high-quality and tireless work that Terry Horgan invested
in this edition. He brought a needed fresh perspective, a dynamic writing style,
and a high level of professionalism to this volume. We are honored that such a
fine scholar agreed to share authorship on this textbook.
Each of us would also like to thank following reviewers for their input
during the development of this edition:
Erika Engstrom, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Peggy Hutcheson, Kennesaw State University
Kevin Hutchinson, St. Norbert College
Rebecca Litke, California State University, Northridge
Christine Moore, Boise State University
Teri Varner, St. Edwards University
Dennis Wignall, Dixie State College
We would also like to acknowledge the skills exhibited by the publishing staff
who helped us develop this edition including Monica Eckman, publisher, and
Colin Solan, editorial assistant. And a special thanks to Daisuke Yasutake
and Pooja Khurana for great patience and timeliness in all our communications
regarding the revision.
PREFACE xvii
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AN INTRODUCTION
TO THE STUDY OF
NONVERBAL
COMMUNICATION
[PART I]
What is nonverbal communication? How does nonverbal behavior function in rela-
tion to verbal behavior? How does nonverbal communication affect our everyday
lives? Do we learn how to perform body language, or is it instinctive? Are some
people more skilled at communicating with these face, voice, and body signals?
The answers to these fundamental questions are the focus of Part I of this book.
1
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deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION:
BASIC PERSPECTIVES
[CHAPTER1]
It may come as no surprise to you that, in everyday life, you are an expert in non-
verbal communication even though you have yet to read a page of this book. Con-
sider the following questions:
Have you ever looked at another person in such a way as to communicate
your sexual interest in him or her?
When you enter an elevator full of strangers, do you take a sudden interest in
how those buttons light up as the cage moves from floor to floor?
Do you know when a baby is hungry as opposed to tired, just from hearing
how it cries?
If you cut someone off in traffic, would you have a problem understanding the
other drivers reaction if he or she showed you only an upright middle finger?
How would you use your right hand when you are introduced to a potential
boss during an interview?
Can you tell when a loved one might be mad, sad, or happy by looking at his
or her face?
Imagine entering a dorm room and seeing two men. One is wearing athletic
shorts and a tank top over a heavily muscled body, and he has posters of
football stars on the wall near his bed and his clothes litter his side of the
room. The other manthin and bespectacledappears to be neat as a pin,
with stacks of math and engineering books around his desk. Would you
suspect potential conflict between these two?
Those of us who keep our eyes open can read volumes into what we see going on
around us.
E. T. Hall
3
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Chances are you had no problem answering these questions. That is because
everyone possesses a wealth of knowledge, beliefs, and experience regarding non-
verbal communication. These questions bring to mind three aspects of nonverbal
communication that you make use of during your day-to-day interactions with
others. One concerns the sending of nonverbal messages; the second, receiving
them; and the last, the complex interplay between the first two. First, you send (or
encode) nonverbal messages to otherssometimes deliberately, sometimes not. In
the case of the former, your goal is for the other person to understand a particular
message that you have sent to him or her along one or more nonverbal cue chan-
nels, such as your tone of voice, posture, and facial expression (She could tell
I was mad at her). Sometimes you succeed. If you do not, it could be because
your message was unclear, contradictory, or ambiguous or because the other
person missed, ignored, or misread your nonverbal message. You also may send
nonverbal messages to others that are not deliberate or even intended by you. For
example, you naturally communicate your biological sex to others via a series of
static nonverbal cues that include your body shape and facial features, and you
can burst into tears when sad. You have sent a powerful nonverbal message to
others in each case, even though your goal was not necessarily to do so. There are
times in which important information about your emotional state, attitudes, and
intentions leaks out of you nonverbally. Your bitterness toward a rivals remarks
might be revealed in a flash of anger across your face despite your best efforts to
conceal it. Such facial cues are dynamic in nature because they change during an
interaction.
As you might have guessed already, you live in a sea of static and dynamic
nonverbal messages. These messages come to you when you are interacting with
others and even when you are all alone (I start to shake when I think about my
date tonight). They come to you from other people, such as strangers, acquain-
tances, neighbors, coworkers, friends, and loved ones. They even come to you
from animals that are part of your world, such as the neighbors dog that wags its
tail every time it sees you. They also come to you from the physical structure of,
and objects contained within, the environments that you move in and out of during
your day. These environments are real in a physical sense because you can make
physical contact with them. However, one such environment is not physical in this
sense: cyberspace. While in cyberspace, you can only hear and see nonverbal mes-
sages, such as those delivered by othersprofile picsand emoticons. These
computer-generated nonverbal messages are probably becoming increasingly
important to you in a world where online interactions are taking the place of some
face-to-face interactions. Indeed, some of you might be taking this classof all
things, a class in nonverbal communicationonline.
Verbal messages are meaningless unless someone is there to interpret them.
Nonverbal communication is no different. The process of receiving nonverbal mes-
sages, including our own (Why is my fist clenched when hes around?), includes
giving meaning to or interpreting those messages. (This process will be defined later
as decoding a nonverbal message.) As a receiver of nonverbal messages, you may
focus on one particular nonverbal cue or several in an attempt to understand the
message that another person has sent to you. For example, in an effort to under-
stand the emotional state of your friend James, you might focus on his facial
4PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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expression or his posture, facial expression, and tone of voice. Whether you are
successful at interpreting that emotional message is another matter altogether. If
you succeed, what you think he feels and how he actually feels will be the same.
However, as mentioned earlier, you might have missed or ignored that nonverbal
message. Or, depending on your skill level at reading othersemotion states, you
might have misinterpreted his nonverbal message. Finally, you might have correctly
interpreted his message but still do not understand how he truly feels because he
used nonverbal behavior to feign a feeling or conceal a particular emotion state
from you.
It is obvious that words can be combined in an infinite number of ways, and
that the meaning of a sentence may depend upon contextual information, word
choice, and the arrangement of the selected words. For example, take the following
sentence fragment: Mia learned about She drove to Charity with a in
her hand.It is unclear what is going on in this situation. Let us see what happens
when we add different contextual information and words to these sentences.
(1) Mia learned about the plight of the children. She drove to the Charity with a
checkbook in her hand. (2) Mia learned about her husbands infidelity. She drove
to the house where Charity lives with a gun in her hand. In a similar fashion, the
meaning of nonverbal communication is not as simple as knowing what specific
nonverbal behavior, say touching, is seen by you. It depends upon contextual infor-
mation, the sender (encoder) of the nonverbal behavior, the receiver (decoder) of
that behavior, the relationship between the sender and receiver, the arrangement
of other nonverbal cues, as well as any words being exchanged by the two.
Let us consider an example to illustrate the complexity of nonverbal communi-
cation. You see two people hug. What does that hug mean? Now what comes to
your mind when additional information is added?
There are other people around dressed in black standing near an open casket
at a funeral, or the two people are at a high school reunion.
What if the setting is a nightclub and the two people are a man and woman in
the early stages of a romantic relationship as opposed to two men who are
there to celebrate their baseball teams victory earlier that evening?
Would your perception of the hug change if you learned that the setting was a
work party and the person initiating the hugging was known to be very warm
and outgoing versus of high status and a domineering disposition?
How might the inclusion and placement of other nonverbal cues, such as pos-
ture, affect your perception of the hug? What if the two people are leaning
toward each other from a distance, touching shoulders only briefly as opposed
to pressing their bodies together and resting their heads on each others
shoulders? Would it matter to you if the person being hugged stiffened his or her
body before receiving the hug? Historical and cultural factors are likely to play a
role in your perception of that simple hug as well. If you had lived around the
turn of the 20th century, you would have looked askance at the two people if
you knew that they had just ended their first date, whereas nowadays such
behavior would not even raise one of your eyebrows. If the two were Eastern
European men, you might not be surprised if they began cheek kissing as well,
whereas you would be surprised if they were from the United States.
CHAPTER 1NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION:BASIC PERSPECTIVES 5
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Lastly, consideration would be given to any words exchanged between the two
people, as this could significantly alter the meaning of their hug. For instance,
in the funeral setting mentioned earlier, it would matter if, during the hug, one
person said to the other, Sorry for your loss,as opposed to We can now
finally get our hands on our inheritance money!
Being an expert in using and understanding nonverbal cues, you probably had
no problem understanding how the meaning of that hug changed in these scenar-
ios. On the basis of the hugging scenarios (see Figure 1-1), it might be clear to you
that a particular nonverbal cue has multiple meanings (or maybe even no apparent
meaning at all) and that the particular meaning you settle on depends on a host of
other factors, including the presence and absence of other nonverbal cues. Thus, as
a sender and receiver of nonverbal cues, you have to make some decisions about
CAN PEOPLE READ OTHERS LIKE A BOOK?
It depends on your definition of like a book. There are book
titles that tell us a lot about what is inside (e.g., How to
Taste: A Guide to Enjoying Wine). Similarly, there are
nonverbal displays that can tell us a lot about what a
person is feeling inside (e.g., red face, eyebrows lowered
and drawn together, shaking fists). Book covers and titles
also allow us to categorize stories (e.g., nonfiction, history,
civil war battles). Likewise, we can categorize peopletheir
age, gender, and personality traitsby looking at their
head and facial characteristics (see Chapter 6).
However, understanding books and people is generally a far more complicated matter. If you read
Stephenie MeyersTwilight series, you had to learn about the characters, the events, the setting, and the
plot to grasp her story. Understanding people is no different. If you were observing another person, you
would want to take into consideration his or her characteristics (physical, social, psychological), his or her
nonverbal and verbal behavior, the setting he or she is in, whom he or she is interacting with and why,
and so on. Importantly, peoples nonverbal cues are only one cluethe meaning of which is dependent
upon a host of other factorsto understanding who they are.
androfroll/Shutterstock.com
beboy/Shutterstock.com
6PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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the cues you transmit to and pick up from others, which suggests that there must
be some rules that you follow. Some of these rules may be very clear to you, such
as knowing that you should not sniff a member of the other sex when you first
meet him or her. Other rules that you follow are completely unknown to you,
operating outside your conscious awareness. Do you know the array of cues that
you send and receive that allow you and a friend to smoothly and effortlessly take
turns while talking to each other? Finally, other rules occupy the middle ground
between the two; they can be brought to your conscious awareness at times, if
only partially. One such rule concerns not standing too close to others when talk-
ing with them. Although you are aware of this rule, you probably do not think
about it much during your day-to-day interactions. However, although the exact
distance of your personal comfort zone may be unknown to you, you certainly
know when it has been violated by someone standing too close. Because these
rules run the gamut from being explicit to completely outside of your conscious
awareness, the decisions you make regarding your use and interpretation of non-
verbal cues must as well.
Despite being an expert in the everyday use of nonverbal cues, you are new to
the scientific study of nonverbal communication. The need to formally investigate
what people do in everyday life becomes quickly apparent when you think about
the specifics of nonverbal behavior. For example, how do peoples personal com-
fort zones vary from culture to culture, and how do people manage to take turns
smoothly in conversation? The purpose of this book is to introduce you to the
scientific study of nonverbal communication, which includes an examination of
how nonverbal cues are usedwhether intentionally or spontaneously, consciously
FIGURE 1-1
What will this hug mean?
Anton Gvozdikov/Shutterstock.com
CHAPTER 1NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION:BASIC PERSPECTIVES 7
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or notin human interaction. Of importance, our understanding of nonverbal
communication comes from many different disciplines, including anthropology,
biology, communication, gender studies, psychology, and sociology, which will
become apparent in the chapters to follow.
However, before we get to that, there is a need to discuss five basic perspec-
tives through which we can view these chapters:
1. As with other scientific disciplines, there is a need for a common language for
discussing the topic at hand. Thus, nonverbal communication will be defined.
2. Nonverbal behavior also will be classified (e.g., territoriality, gestures, touch-
ing, eye behavior). By classifying nonverbal behaviors, we will be able to
review the relevant research in each area in an organized fashion.
3. Nonverbal behavior that has been defined and classified (e.g., touching behav-
ior) should not be thought of as occurring in isolation from nonverbal behav-
ior that is part of another category (e.g., eye behavior) or, for that matter,
from verbal behavior. Indeed, consideration of the interplay between nonver-
bal cues and verbal cues is a vital part of understanding the total communica-
tion process that occurs between people in daily life and even on social
networking sites.
4. The scientific roots and historical trends in nonverbal communication research
will be reviewed, as they provide the foundation and framework, respectively,
for exploring the current research in this domain.
5. The potential relevance of this scientific endeavor to our everyday lives will be
discussed, as many of its findings have implications for our personal lives and
can be applied to the various settings in which we work.
Each of these basic perspectives will be covered in greater detail in the remain-
der of this chapter.
PERSPECTIVE 1: DEFINING NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
To most people, the phrase nonverbal communication refers to communication
effected by means other than words, assuming words are the verbal element. Like
most definitions, this one is generally useful, but it does not account for the com-
plexity of this phenomenon adequately. This broad definition should serve us well,
though, as long as we understand and appreciate the following points.
First, we need to understand that separating verbal and nonverbal behavior
into two separate and distinct categories is virtually impossible. Consider, for
example, the hand movements that make up American Sign Language, a language
of the deaf. These gesticulations are mostly linguistic (verbal), yet hand gestures
are often considered behavior that is other than words.And for those who can
hear, their own hand gestures may be used to retrieve the words they wish to
speak to others from their mental lexicon (Hadar, Wenkert-Olenik, Krauss, &
Soroker, 1998). McNeill (1992) demonstrated the linguistic qualities of some
gestures by noting that different kinds of gestures disappear with different kinds of
aphasiathe impairment of the ability to use or comprehend wordsnamely,
those gestures with linguistic functions similar to the specific verbal loss. Conversely,
not all spoken words are clearly or singularly verbal: for example, onomatopoeic
8PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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words, such as buzz or murmur, and nonpropositional speech used by auctioneers
and some people with aphasia.
Second, we need to understand that our definition does not indicate whether
the phrase by means other than wordsrefers to the type of signal produced
that is, its encodingor to the perceivers code for interpreting the symbolits
decoding. Generally, when people refer to nonverbal behavior, they are talking
about the signals produced, or encoded, to which meaning will be attributed, not
the process of attributing meaning. A first step toward understanding the process
of attributing meaning to nonverbal behavior is to understand how the brain pro-
cesses nonverbal stimuli.
PROCESSING NONVERBAL INFORMATION
Currently, many brain researchers believe that the two hemispheres of the brain
process different types of information, but each hemisphere does not process each
type exclusively. Nonverbal messages may be processed by either hemisphere, even
though the bulk of the work is probably done by the right side. The left hemisphere
processes mainly sequentially ordered, digital, verbal, and linguistic information.
Nonverbal messages processed by the left hemisphere may involve symbolic gestures
and facial expressions that have a closely linked verbal translation: for example,
speech-independent gestures that have a direct verbal translation, such as thumbs-
up (see Chapter 7). The right hemisphere of the brain is normally credited with pro-
cessing visual/spatial relationships and analogic, or Gestalt, information. And it
seems to be the main processing area for some types of gestures as well as spontane-
ous, expressive displays of emotion in the face and voice (Buck & VanLear, 2002;
Kelly & Goldsmith, 2004). It is important to note, however, that few scientists cur-
rently believe that either side of the brain deals exclusively with a particular kind of
information. In fact, the following case illustrates how adaptable the brain can be.
Bruce Lipstadt had the left hemisphere of his brain removed when he was
5 years old (Koutlak, 1976). Few doctors had hope for the development of his
verbal ability, and most thought the operation would paralyze part of his body.
Twenty-six years later, Bruce had an IQ of 126better than 9 out of 10 people.
He swam, rode his bike, and got an A in a statistics course. Because his speech
was normal, the right hemisphere must have taken over many of the functions
formerly conducted mainly by the left hemisphere. Obviously, this does not always
happen as a result of operations of this type, especially after puberty. But it does sug-
gest that, although the right and left hemispheres seem to specialize in processing
certain types of information, they are by no means limited to processing only one.
Even when information is being processed primarily by one hemisphere, it
is unlikely that the other hemisphere is totally inactive. While someone is reading
a story, the right hemisphere may be playing a specialized role in understanding
a metaphor or appreciating emotional content, whereas the left hemisphere is
simultaneously trying to derive meaning from the complex relations among
word concepts and syntax. Interestingly, the different functions of the two brain
hemispheres do not seem as clearly differentiated in women as in men, and some
left-handed people are known to have hemispheric functions the opposite of those
just described (Andersen, Garrison, & Andersen, 1979; Iaccino, 1993).
CHAPTER 1NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION:BASIC PERSPECTIVES 9
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Despite the apparent complexity and adaptability of the brain, much of what is
processed by the right hemisphere seems to be what we call nonverbal phenomena,
whereas much of what is processed by the left hemisphere is what we categorize as
verbal phenomena. However, because some nonverbal behavior is more closely
aligned with verbal behavior than others (e.g., speech-independent gestures), we
might expect to see more left-hemispheric activity in such cases.
AWARENESS AND CONTROL
Thus far, our definition has not addressed the issue of whether the nonverbal beha-
viors we enact are done with a great deal of awareness or not. Nonverbal behavior,
like verbal behavior, is encoded with varying degrees of control and awareness
(Lakin, 2006). Sometimes human beings have time to plan their responses. Some-
times it is extremely important for them to respond rapidly when a great deal of
information is impinging on their senses. When this occurs, people are unaware,
or only dimly aware, of why they responded as they did. These responses are
linked to a cognitive program that takes place immediately and automatically fol-
lowing the perception of a particular stimulus (Choi, Gray, & Ambady, 2005).
When we use speech-independent gestures, pose for photographs, or select our
attire, a high level of awareness and control is usually present. We know what we
are doing, we take time to respond, and we enact our behavior according to a con-
scious plan. Nervous mannerisms, pupil dilation, and mimicking the behavior of an
interaction partner are examples of behavior that are often enacted outside of our
awareness and control (e.g., Bargh & Chartrand, 1999). We may even have an
entire array of default verbal and nonverbal behaviors that kick in automatically
when, for example, we are introduced to a stranger. We may enact a given behav-
ior without much awareness on some occasions but may do so with a great deal of
awareness at other times. For example, we may not realize our tone of voice is sig-
naling our dislike for a person we are talking to, but we are very much aware of
using our voice to communicate a sarcastic message.
Decoding nonverbal behavior also may be performed with varying degrees
of awareness. Sometimes we perceive a stimulus, such as a man who looks elderly,
and this automatically triggers the perception that the man is also walking slowly
whether he is or not. When people say they think a person is lying but cannot
explain what behaviors led them to believe that, it may mean there is an out-
of-awareness program in their brain that is associated with the deception and
triggered by the perception of certain behaviors.
But responses that are out of our awareness and control need not always be
that way. Feedback on the accuracy or utility of an automatic process may lead to
changing the program or eliminating it. Reading this book may also make you
more aware of certain behaviors you have been encoding and decoding.
PERSPECTIVE 2: CLASSIFYING NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR
Another way of defining nonverbal communication is to look at the things people
study. The theory and research associated with nonverbal communication focus on
three primary units: the environmental structures and conditions within which
10 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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communication takes place, the physical characteristics of the communicators
themselves, and the various behaviors manifested by the communicators. A detailed
breakdown of these three features follows.
THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT Although most of the emphasis in nonverbal research is on
the appearance and behavior of the people communicating, increasing attention is
being given to the influence of nonhuman factors on human transactions. People
change environments to help them accomplish their communicative goals; con-
versely, environments can affect our moods, choices of words, and actions. Thus,
this category concerns those elements that impinge on the human relationship but
are not directly a part of it. Environmental factors include the furniture, architec-
tural style, interior decorating, lighting conditions, colors, temperature, additional
noises or music, and so on amid which the interaction occurs. Variations in
arrangements, materials, shapes, or surfaces of objects in the interacting environ-
ment can be extremely influential on the outcome of an interpersonal relationship.
This category also includes what might be called traces of action. For instance, as
you observe cigarette butts, orange peels, and wastepaper left by the person you
will soon interact with, you form an impression that will eventually influence
your meeting with him or her. Perceptions of time and timing make up another
important part of the communicative environment. When something occurs, how
frequently it occurs, and the tempos or rhythms of actions are clearly a part of
the communicative world even though they are not a part of the physical environ-
ment per se.
SPATIAL ENVIRONMENT Proxemics is the study of the use and perception of social and
personal space. Under this heading is a body of work called small group ecology,
which concerns itself with how people use and respond to spatial relationships in
formal and informal group settings. Such studies deal with seating and spatial
arrangements as related to leadership, communication flow, and the task at hand.
On an even broader level, some attention has been given to spatial relationships
in crowds and densely populated situations. Personal space orientation is some-
times studied in the context of conversation distance and how it varies according
to sex, status, roles, cultural orientation, and so forth. The term territoriality is
also used frequently in the study of proxemics to denote the human tendency to
stake out personal territory, or untouchable space,much as wild animals and
birds do.
THE COMMUNICATORSPHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
This category covers things that remain relatively unchanged during the period of
interaction. These static nonverbal cues include a persons physique or body
shape, general attractiveness, height, weight, hair, overall skin color or tone, and
so forth. Body or breath odors associated with the person are normally considered
part of his or her physical appearance. Further, objects associated with interactants
also may affect physical appearance. These are called artifacts and include things
CHAPTER 1NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION:BASIC PERSPECTIVES 11
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such as clothes, eyeglasses, hairpieces, false eyelashes, jewelry, and accessories
(e.g., an attaché case). Physical appearance also includes the various ways people
choose to decorate their skin: for example, with tattoos, cosmetics, scars, piercings,
and paint.
BODY MOVEMENT AND POSITION
Dynamic body movement and positioning typically include the following: gestures;
movements of the limbs, hands, head, feet, and legs; facial expressions, such as
smiles; eye behavior, including blinking, direction and length of gaze, and pupil
dilation; and posture. The furrow of the brow, the slump of a shoulder, and the
tilt of a head are all considered body movements and positions. Specifically, the
major areas are gestures, posture, touching behavior, facial expressions, eye behav-
ior, and vocal behavior.
GESTURES There are many different types of gestures, and many variations of these
types, but the most frequently studied are the following:
1. Speech independent. When viewed independently of speech, these gestures
have a well-known verbal translation in their usage community, usually con-
sisting of a word or two or a phrase. The gestures used to represent okayor
peace(also the V-for-victorysign) are examples of speech-independent
gestures for large segments of U.S. culture.
2. Speech related. These gestures are directly tied to, or accompany, speech
and often serve to illustrate what is being said verbally. These movements
may accent or emphasize a word or phrase, sketch a path of thought,
point to present objects, depict a spatial relationship, depict the rhythm or
pacing of an event, draw a picture of a referent, depict a bodily action,
or serve as commentary on the regulation and organization of the
interactive process.
POSTURE Posture is normally studied in conjunction with other nonverbal signals
to determine the degree of attention or involvement, the degree of status relative
to the other interactive partner, or the degree of liking for the other interactant.
A forward-leaning posture, for example, has been associated with higher involve-
ment, more liking, and lower status in studies where interactants did not know
each other very well. Posture is also a key indicator of the intensity of some emo-
tional states: for example, the drooping posture associated with sadness or the
rigid, tense posture associated with anger. The extent to which the communicators
mirror each others posture may indicate conversational involvement, which some-
times results in greater rapport between interactants.
TOUCHING BEHAVIOR Touching may be self-focused or other-focused. Self-focused
manipulations, not usually made for purposes of communicating, may reflect a
persons particular state or habit. Many are commonly called nervous mannerisms.
Some of these actions are relics from an earlier time in our life, when we
first learned how to manage emotions, develop social contacts, or perform some
12 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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instructional task. Sometimes we perform these manipulations as we adapt to such
learning experiences, and they stay with us when we face similar situations later
in life, often as only part of the original movement. Some refer to these types of
self-focused manipulation as adaptors. These adaptors may involve various manip-
ulations of ones own body, such as licking, picking, holding, pinching, and
scratching. Object adaptors are manipulations practiced in conjunction with an
object, as when a reformed cigarette smoker reaches toward his breast pocket for
the nonexistent package of cigarettes. Of course, not all behaviors that reflect
habitual actions or an anxious disposition can be traced to earlier adaptations,
but they do represent a part of the overall pattern of bodily action.
One of the most potent forms of nonverbal communication occurs when two
people touch. Touch can be virtually electric, but it also can hurt or comfort. As
you will see later, touch is a highly ambiguous form of behavior whose meaning
often depends more on the context, the nature of the relationship, and the manner
of execution than on the configuration of the touch per se. Some researchers are
concerned with touching behavior as an important factor in a childs early develop-
ment, and others are concerned with adult touching behavior.
FACIAL EXPRESSIONS Most studies of the face are concerned with the configurations
that display various emotional states. The six primary affects that receive the most
study are anger, sadness, surprise, happiness, fear, and disgust. Facial expressions
also can function as regulatory gestures, providing feedback and managing the
flow of interaction. In fact, some researchers believe the primary function of
the face is to communicate, not to express emotions.
EYE BEHAVIOR Where we look, when we look, and how long we look during an
interaction are the primary foci for studies of gazing. Gaze refers to the eye move-
ment we make in the general direction of anothers face. Mutual gaze occurs when
interactants look into each others eye area. The dilation and constriction of the
pupils is of particular interest to those who study nonverbal communication because
it is sometimes an indicator of interest, attention/involvement, or deception.
VOCAL BEHAVIOR Vocal behavior deals with how something is said, not what is
said. It deals with the range of nonverbal vocal cues surrounding common speech
behavior. Generally, a distinction is made between two types of sounds:
1. The sound variations made with the vocal cords during speech that are a
function of changes in pitch, duration, and loudness.
2. Sounds that result primarily from physiological mechanisms other than the
vocal cords: for example, the pharyngeal, oral, or nasal cavities.
Most of the research on vocal behavior and its effects on human interaction has
focused on pitch level and variability; the duration of sounds, whether they are clipped
or drawn out; pauses within the speech stream and the latency of response when
switching speaking turns; loudness level and variability; resonance; precise or slurred
articulation; rate; rhythm; and intruding sounds during speech, such as uhor
um.The study of vocal signals encompasses a broad range of interests, from ques-
tions focusing on stereotypes associated with certain voices to questions about the
CHAPTER 1NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION:BASIC PERSPECTIVES 13
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effects of vocal behavior on comprehension and persuasion. Thus, even specialized
sounds such as laughing, belching, yawning, swallowing, and moaning may be of
interest to the extent that they might affect the outcome of an interaction.
PERSPECTIVE 3: NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
IN THE TOTAL COMMUNICATION PROCESS
Even though this book emphasizes nonverbal communication, it is important not to
forget the inseparable nature of verbal and nonverbal signals. Ray Birdwhistell, a
pioneer in nonverbal research, reportedly said that studying only nonverbal com-
munication is like studying noncardiac physiology. His point is well taken. It is
not easy to dissect human interaction and make one diagnosis that concerns only
verbal behavior and another that concerns only nonverbal behavior. The verbal
dimension is so intimately woven and subtly represented in so much of what has
been previously labeled nonverbal that the term does not always adequately describe
the behavior under study. Some of the most noteworthy scholars associated with
nonverbal study refuse to segregate words from gestures; these scholars work under
the broader terms of communication or face-to-face interaction (Bavelas & Chovil,
2006). Kendon puts it this way:
It is a common observation that, when a person speaks, muscular systems besides those
of the lips, tongue, and jaws often become active.Gesticulation is organized as part of
the same overall unit of action by which speech is also organized.Gesture and speech
are available as two separate modes of representation and are coordinated because both
are being guided by the same overall aim. That aim is to produce a pattern of action that
will accomplish the representation of a meaning. (1983, pp. 17, 20)
Because verbal and nonverbal systems operate together as part of the larger com-
munication process, efforts to distinguish clearly between the two have not been
very successful. One common misconception, for example, assumes that nonverbal
behavior is used solely to communicate emotional messages, whereas verbal behav-
ior is for conveying ideas. Words transmit emotional informationwe can talk
explicitly about emotions, and we also communicate emotion between the lines in
verbal nuances. Conversely, nonverbal cues are often used for purposes other than
showing emotion; for example, people in conversation use eye movements to help
tell each other when it is time to switch speaking turns, and people commonly use
hand gestures while talking to help convey their ideas (McNeill, 2000).
We also need to recognize that the ways we attribute meaning to verbal and
nonverbal behavior are not all that different, either. Nonverbal actions, like verbal
ones, may communicate more than one message at a time. For example, the way
you nonverbally make it clear to another person that you want to keep talking
may simultaneously express your need for dominance over that person as well as
your current emotional state. When you grip a childs shoulder during a repri-
mand, you may increase his or her comprehension and recall, but you may also
elicit such a negative reaction that he or she refuses to obey you. A smile can be
a part of an emotional expression, an attitudinal message, a self-presentation, or a
listener response to manage the interaction. And, like verbal behavior, the mean-
ings attributed to nonverbal behavior may be stereotyped, idiomatic, or ambiguous.
14 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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Furthermore, the same nonverbal behavior performed in different contexts may,
like words, receive different attributions of meaning. For example, looking down
at the floor may reflect sadness in one situation and submissiveness or lack of
involvement in another. Finally, in an effort to identify the fundamental categories
of meaning associated with nonverbal behavior, Mehrabian (1970, 1981) identified
a threefold perspective resulting from his extensive testing:
1. Immediacy. Sometimes we react to things by evaluating them as positive or
negative, good or bad, and so on.
2. Status. Sometimes we enact or perceive behaviors that indicate various aspects
of status to us, such as strong or weak, superior or subordinate.
3. Responsiveness. This third category refers to our perceptions of activity as
being slow or fast, active or passive.
In various verbal and nonverbal studies over the past three decades, dimensions
similar to Mehrabians have been reported consistently by investigators from
diverse fields studying diverse phenomena. It is reasonable to conclude, therefore,
that these three dimensions are basic responses to our environment and are
reflected in the way we assign meaning to both verbal and nonverbal behavior.
Most of this work, however, depends on people translating their reactions to a
nonverbal act into verbal descriptors. This issue has already been addressed in
our discussion of the way the brain processes different pieces of information.
In general, then, like words, nonverbal signals can and do have multiple uses and
meanings; like words, nonverbal signals have denotative and connotative meanings;
and like words, nonverbal signals play an active role in communicating liking,
power, and responsiveness. With these in mind, we can now examine some of the
important ways verbal and nonverbal behaviors interrelate during human interac-
tion. Ekman (1965) identified the following: repeating, conflicting, complementing,
substituting, accenting/moderating, and regulating.
REPEATING
Nonverbal communication can simply repeat what was said verbally. For instance,
if you told a person he or she had to go north to find a parking place and then
pointed in the proper direction, this would be repetition.
CONFLICTING
Verbal and nonverbal signals can be at variance with one another in a variety of
ways. They may communicate two contradictory messages or two messages that
seem incongruous with each other (see Figure 1-2). In both instances, two messages
that do not appear to be consistent with each other are perceived. It is quite com-
mon, and probably functional, to have mixed feelings about some things. As a
result, incongruous verbal and nonverbal messages may be more common than we
realize. But it is the more dramatic contradictions that we are more likely to notice.
Perhaps it is the parent who yells to his or her child in an angry voice, Of course
I love you!Or the public speaker, who, with trembling hands and knees and
beads of perspiration on the brow, claims, Im not nervous.
CHAPTER 1NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION:BASIC PERSPECTIVES 15
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Why do these conflicting messages occur? In some cases it is a natural response
to a situation in which communicators perceive themselves to be in a bind. They do
not want to tell the truth, and they do not want to lie. As a result, their ambiva-
lence and frustration produce a discrepant message (Bavelas, Black, Chovil, &
Mullett, 1990). In other situations, conflicting messages occur because people do
an imperfect job of lying. Suppose you have just given a terrible presentation, and
you ask me how you did. I may say you did fine, but my voice, face, and body
may not support my words. On still other occasions, conflicting messages may be
the result of an attempt to communicate sarcasm or irony, saying one thing with
words and the opposite with vocal tone and/or facial expression. The term coy is
used to describe the display of coexisting signals that invite friendly contact with
those that signal rejection and withdrawal. We live in a complex world, which
makes feelings of ambivalence or mixed emotions a much more common experi-
ence than we sometimes acknowledge (Weigert, 1991).
Displays of incongruous or conflicting signals may occur in a variety of ways.
Sometimes two nonverbal signals may manifest the discord (e.g., vocal with visual),
but usually we are more aware of the contrasting verbal and nonverbal signals
(e.g., positive voice/negative words, negative voice/positive words, positive face/
negative words, or negative face/positive words).
How do we react when confronted with conflicting messages that matter to us?
Leathers (1979) has identified a common three-step process:
1. The first reaction is confusion and uncertainty.
2. Next, we search for additional information that will clarify the situation.
3. If clarification is not forthcoming, we will probably react with displeasure,
hostility, or even withdrawal.
It is not unusual for a person perceiving a conflicting message that is ambiguous
to respond with an ambiguous message of his or her own. Some believe that a
FIGURE 1-2
(a) Conflicting verbal/nonverbal signals. (b) Is this an aggressive or playful situation? What observations
influenced your decision?
b
a
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16 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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constant barrage of conflicting and ambiguous messages can contribute to a
psychopathology in the receiver. This may be particularly true when the commu-
nicators have a close relationship and the target of the conflicting messages has
no one else he or she can turn to for discussion and possible clarification of
the confusing messages. Some research finds that parents of disturbed children
produce more messages with conflicting cues (Bugental, Love, Kaswan, & April,
1971). Other work suggests that the differences are not in conflicting cues but in
negative messages; that is, parents with disturbed children send more negative
messages (Beakel & Mehrabian, 1969). The combination of negativity, confusion,
and punishment can be very harmful if it is a common style of communication
directed toward children. Date rape is another situation in which testimony often
centers around the extent to which the signals of rejection were unequivocal or
ambiguous.
We do not wish to give the impression that all forms of discrepant messages are
harmful. Our daily conversations are probably peppered with instances in which
gestures and speech do not exactly match one another; for example, a speaker telling
a story about someone climbing up a pipe while simultaneously gesturing as though
he or she were climbing a ladder (McNeill, Cassell, & McCullough, 1994). Some-
times these discrepancies go unnoticed, and many are cognitively resolvedwithout
overtly discussing the mismatch. Even contradictions with more important implica-
tions for conversants may not, in some situations, be considered harmful. Moreover,
as stated earlier, discrepancy is required for achieving certain effects. Sarcasm, for
example, occurs when the words are pleasant but the voice quality is unpleasant,
and when the words are unpleasant but the tone of voice is pleasant, we are likely
to communicate the message that we are only joking.
Finally, some discrepancies may be helpful in certain situations. In an experi-
ment, teachers used mixed messages while teaching a lesson to sixth-grade pupils.
When the teachers combined positive words with a negative nonverbal demeanor,
pupils learned more than with any other combination (Woolfolk, 1978). Similarly,
a study of doctors talking with patients found that the combination of positive
words said in a negative tone of voice was associated with the highest levels of
patient satisfaction with the visit (Hall, Roter, & Rand, 1981). Possibly the positive
verbal/negative nonverbal combination is perceived in classrooms and doctors
offices as serious and concerned,and therefore, makes a better impression on
students and patients alike.
Some research has questioned whether we trust and believe nonverbal signals
more than verbal ones when we are confronted with conflicting messages (Bugental,
1974; Burgoon, 1980; Mehrabian, 1972a; Stiff, Hale, Garlick, & Rogan, 1990). It is
often assumed that nonverbal signals are more spontaneous, harder to fake, less
likely to be manipulated, and hence more believable. It is probably more accurate to
say, however, that some nonverbal behaviors are more spontaneous and harder to
fake than others and that some people are more proficient than others at nonverbal
deception. With two conflicting cues, both of which are nonverbal, we predictably
place our reliance on the cues we consider harder to fake. One research team found
that people tended to rely primarily on visual cues in visual/auditory discrepancies,
but when the discrepancy was great, people tended to rely on the audio signals
(DePaulo, Rosenthal, Eisenstat, Rogers, & Finkelstein, 1978).
CHAPTER 1NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION:BASIC PERSPECTIVES 17
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The credibility of information in messages made up of conflicting signals is also
an important factor in determining which cues to believe. If the information being
communicated in one channel lacks credibility, we are likely to discount it and look
to other channels for the realmessage (Bugental, 1974). Sometimes we are faced
with the dilemma of perceiving the meaning communicated by hard-to-fake cues
that do not seem credible. If a person says, This is really great,with a sad tone of
voice upon receiving a birthday gift you know was long desired, you are likely to
search for other explanations (e.g., he or she is bothered about getting older).
Interestingly, young children seem to give less credence to certain nonverbal
cues than adults do when confronted with conflicting verbal and nonverbal
messages (Bugental, Kaswan, Love, & Fox, 1970; Bugental, Love, & Gianetto,
1971; Volkmar & Siegel, 1982). Conflicting messages in which the speaker smiled
while making a critical statement were interpreted more negatively by children than
adults, particularly when the speaker was a woman.
Other work casts an even deeper shadow on the theory that we always rely on
nonverbal cues in conflicting-message situations. Shapiro (1968) found that student
judges differed as to whether they relied on verbal or facial cues when asked to select
the affect being communicated by sketched faces with expressions that were incon-
gruent with the written messages associated with them. Vande Creek and Watkins
(1972) extended Shapiros work by using real voices and moving pictures. The
people in the stimulus examples portrayed inconsistencies in the degree of stress in
verbal and nonverbal channels. Again, they found that some respondents tended to
rely primarily on verbal cues, some tended to rely on nonverbal cues, and some
responded to the degree of stress in general regardless of the channels manifesting it.
The cross-cultural research of Solomon and Ali (1975) suggests that familiarity with
the verbal language may affect our reliance on verbal or nonverbal cues. They found,
for instance, that people who were less familiar with the language used to construct
the contradictory message relied on the content for judgments of affective meaning.
Those who knew the language well were more apt to rely on the vocal intonation
for the affective meaning. So it appears that some people will rely more heavily on
the verbal message when verbal and nonverbal cues offer conflicting information.
We do not know all the conditions that affect which signals people look to for
valid information. As a general rule, people tend to rely on those signals they
perceive harder to fake, but this will most likely vary with the situation; so the ulti-
mate impact of verbal, visual, and vocal signals is best determined by a close exam-
ination of the people involved in a specific communication context.
Finally, whether people rely more on what a person says or does nonverbally
may depend on what they are trying to figure out about that person. Hall and
Schmid Mast (2007) showed that people turn relatively more to nonverbal cues
when they want to know how a person is feeling and more to verbal cues when
they want to know what a person is thinking.
COMPLEMENTING
Nonverbal behavior can modify or elaborate on verbal messages. When the verbal
and nonverbal channels are complementary, rather than conflicting, our messages
are usually decoded more accurately. Some evidence suggests that complementary
18 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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nonverbal signals also may be helpful when attempting to recall the verbal
message. A student who reflects an attitude of embarrassment when talking to a
professor about a poor performance in class assignments is exhibiting nonverbal
behavior that complements the verbal. When clarity is of utmost importance, as in
a job interview or when making up with a loved one after a fight, we should be
especially concerned with making the meanings of verbal and nonverbal behavior
complement each other.
SUBSTITUTING
Nonverbal behavior can also substitute for verbal messages. It may indicate more
permanent characteristics (sex, age), moderately long-lasting features (personality,
attitudes, social group), and relatively short-term states of a person. In the latter
case, we may see a dejected and downtrodden executive walk into his or her
house after work with a facial expression that substitutes for the statement, Ive
had a rotten day.With a little practice, people soon learn to identify a wide
range of these substitute nonverbal displaysall the way from Its been a fantastic
day!to Oh, God, am I miserable!
Sometimes, when substitute nonverbal behavior does not get the desired
response, the communicator tries to verbally clarify the message. Consider the
woman who wants her date to stop trying to become physically intimate with her.
She may stiffen, stare straight ahead, or act unresponsive. If the suitor still does not
stop, she might say something like Look, Larry, please dont ruin a nice
friendship.
ACCENTING/MODERATING
Nonverbal behavior may accent (amplify) or moderate (tone down) parts of the
verbal message. Accenting is much like underlining or italicizing written words to
emphasize them. Movements of the head and hands are frequently used to accent
the verbal message. When a father scolds his son for staying out too late, he may
accent a particular phrase with a firm grip on the sons shoulder and an accompa-
nying frown. In some instances, one set of nonverbal cues can accent or moderate
other nonverbal cues. For example, by observing other parts of a persons body
(e.g., a clenched fist), the full intensity of a facial expression of anger is revealed.
REGULATING
Nonverbal behavior is also used to regulate verbal behavior. We do this in two
ways:
1. By coordinating our own verbal and nonverbal behavior in the production of
our messages
2. By coordinating our verbal and nonverbal message behavior with those of our
interaction partners
We regulate the production of our own messages in a variety of ways. Some-
times we use nonverbal signs to segment units of interaction. Posture changes may
CHAPTER 1NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION:BASIC PERSPECTIVES 19
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demarcate a topic change; a gesture may forecast the verbalization of a particular
idea; pauses may help organize spoken information into units. When we speak of
a series of things, we may communicate discreteness by linear, staccato movements
of the arm and hand; for example, We must consider A, B, and C.When we
insert a chopping gesture after each letter, it may suggest a separate consideration
of each letter; a single chop after C might indicate either a consideration of all
three as a group or C in particular.
We also regulate the flow of verbal and nonverbal behavior between ourselves
and an interactant. This may manifest itself in the dramatic (e.g., every time one
person gets mad and yells, the other behaves in a solicitous manner) or less obvious
(e.g., the signals of initiation, continuation, and termination of interaction) types of
behavior that two interactants elicit from each other. The way one person stops
talking and another starts in a smooth, synchronized manner may be as important
to a satisfactory interaction as the content. After all, we do make judgments about
people based on their regulatory skills; for example, we are familiar with the
descriptions Talking to him is like talking to a wallor You cant get a word in
edgewise with her.When another person frequently interrupts or is inattentive, we
may feel this person is making a statement about the relationship, perhaps one of
disrespect. There are rules for regulating conversations, but they are generally
implicit. It is not written down, but we seem to know that two people should not
talk at the same time, that each person should get an equal number of turns at
talking if he or she desires, that a question should be answered, and so forth.
Wiemanns (1977) research found that relatively minute changes in these regulatory
behaviorsinterruptions, pauses longer than 3 seconds, unilateral topic changes,
and so onresulted in sizable variations in how competent a communicator was
perceived to be. As listeners, we are apparently attending to and evaluating a
host of fleeting, subtle, and habitual features of the speakers conversational
behavior. When children first learn these rules, they use less subtle cues; for
example, they tug on clothing or raise a hand. Children are also less skilled in
accomplishing smooth turn-taking, as you will have noticed if you have conversed
with a young child on the telephone. Conversational regulators involve several
kinds of nonverbal cues. When we want to indicate that we are finished speaking
and the other person can start, we may increase our eye contact with the other
person. This is often accompanied by the vocal cues associated with ending
declarative or interrogative statements. If the other person still does not figura-
tively pick up the conversational ball, we might extend silence or interject a
trailersuch as you knowor so, ah.To keep another person from speaking
in a conversation, we have to keep long pauses from occurring, decrease eye con-
tact, and perhaps raise the volume of our voice. When we do not want to take a
speaking turn, we might give the other some reinforcing head nods, maintain
attentive eye contact, and, of course, refrain from speaking when the other begins
to yield. When we do want the floor, we might raise our index finger or enact an
audible inspiration of breath with a straightening of the posture as if ready to
take over. Rapid nodding may signal the other to hurry up and finish, but if we
have trouble getting in, we may have to talk simultaneously for a few words or
engage in stutter starts that we hope will be more easily observed cues to signal
our desire to speak.
20 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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Conversational beginnings and endings also act as regulatory points. When we
are greeting others, eye contact indicates that the channels are open. A slight head
movement and an eyebrow flashof recognitiona barely detectable but distinct
up-and-down movement of the eyebrowsmay be present. The hands are also
used in greetings for salutes, waves, handshakes, handslaps, or emblematic signals
such as the peace or victory sign, a raised fist, or a thumbs-up. Hands may also
perform grooming activities, such as running fingers through the hair, or they may
be involved in various touching activities such as kissing, embracing, or hitting
another on the arm. The mouth may form a smile or an oval shape, as if ready to
start talking (Krivonos & Knapp, 1975).
Saying good-bye in semiformal interviews was shown to elicit many nonverbal
behaviors in one study. The most common included the breaking of eye contact
more often and for longer periods of time, positioning ones body toward an exit,
and leaning forward and nodding. Less frequent, but very noticeable, were accent-
ing behaviors that signaled, This is the termination of our conversation, and I
dont want you to miss it!These accenters included explosive hand and foot
movements, such as raising the hands and/or feet and bringing them down with
enough force to make an audible slap while simultaneously using the hands and
feet as leverage to catapult the interactant out of his or her seat. A less direct mani-
festation was placing the hands on the thighs or knees in a leveraging position, as if
preparing to catapult, hoping that the other person picked up the good-bye cue
(Knapp, Hart, Friedrich, & Shulman, 1973).
PERSPECTIVE 4: HISTORICAL TRENDS IN NONVERBAL RESEARCH
The scientific study of nonverbal communication is primarily a postWorld War II
activity. This does not mean we cannot find important early tributaries of knowl-
edge; even ancient Chinese, Greek, and Roman scholars commented on what we
today would consider nonverbal behavior. QuintiliansInstitutio Oratoria, for
example, is an important source of information on gestures written in the first cen-
tury. If we were to trace the history of fields of studysuch as animal behavior,
anthropology, dance, linguistics, philosophy, psychiatry, psychology, sociology,
and speechwe would no doubt find important antecedents of todays work
(Asendorpf & Wallbott, 1982; Davis, 1979; DePaulo & Friedman, 1998; Hecht &
Ambady, 1999). Nonverbal studies never have been the province of any one partic-
ular discipline. In the last half of the 19th century, Delsarte, among others,
attempted to codify and set forth rules for managing both voice cultureand
body movements or gestures (Shawn, 1954). Although Delsartesscience of
applied estheticsand the elocutionary movement gave way to a less formal, less
stylized manner in the 20th century, it represents one of several early attempts
to identify various forms of bodily expression. One of the most influential
pre20th-century works was DarwinsThe Expression of the Emotions in Man
and Animals in 1872. This work sparked the modern study of facial expressions,
and many of Darwins observations and ideas have been validated by other
researchers (Ekman, 1973).
During the first half of the 20th century, there were isolated studies of
the voice, physical appearance and dress, and the face. An unsystematic look at
CHAPTER 1NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION:BASIC PERSPECTIVES 21
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the publications during this period suggests that studies of proxemics, the environ-
ment, and body movement received even less attention, and the least attention was
given to the investigation of eye behavior and touching. Two distinct but note-
worthy events occurred during this period: The first involved some controversial
scholarship and a scandal; the second concerned a work of extraordinary influence
in the study of nonverbal behavior.
In 1925, Kretschmer authored a book, Physique and Character. This was
followed in 1940 by SheldonsThe Varieties of Human Physique. These works
were based on the idea that if we precisely measure and analyze a persons body,
we can learn much about his or her intelligence, temperament, moral worth, and
future achievement. Sheldons belief that certain characteristics are associated with
certain body typesthe thin ectomorph, the muscular mesomorph, and the fatty
endomorphis still debated (see Chapter 6). His work was featured on the cover
of the popular magazine Life in 1951. To develop a catalogue of body types,
Sheldon was permitted to photograph freshman students in the nude at Yale,
Wellesley, Vassar, Princeton, Smith, Mt. Holyoke, and other colleges (Rosenbaum,
1995). The students were told it was a project involving posture, and thousands
compliedincluding future president George H. W. Bush and future Secretary of
State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The photos have reportedly been destroyed, and
Sheldons personal notes indicate that he drew racial conclusions from his work.
People continue to associate certain characteristics with different body types, but the
validity of these perceptions was not proven by Sheldon or any researchers since.
In contrast, EfronsGesture and Environment (1941) has become a classic
because it made three important contributions. Efrons innovative and detailed
methods of studying gesture and body language, along with his framework for clas-
sifying nonverbal behavior, influenced future generations of scholars. In addition,
Efrons work documented the important role of culture in shaping our gestures and
body movement, which at the time was contrary to the belief of manyincluding
Adolf Hitlerwho thought that peoples behavior was not subject to much modifi-
cation by changing contexts and environments.
The 1950s showed a significant increase in the number of research efforts that
delved into nonverbal communication. Some of the milestones included the
following:
1. BirdwhistellsIntroduction to Kinesics appeared in 1952, and HallsThe Silent
Language in 1959. These anthropologists were responsible for taking some
of the principles of linguistics and applying them to nonverbal phenomena,
providing new labels for the study of body movement (kinesics) and space
(proxemics), and launching a program of research in each area.
2. Tragers 1958 delineation of the components of paralanguage(see Chapter 11)
greatly enhanced the precision with which we classify and study vocal cues.
3. Psychiatrist Jurgen Ruesch and photographer Weldon Kees combined their
efforts to produce a popular book titled Nonverbal Communication: Notes
on the Visual Perception of Human Relations in 1956. This was probably the
first book to use the term nonverbal communication in its title. Therapists,
including Freud, had been interested in nonverbal cues prior to the 1950s, but
this work provided additional theoretical insights into the origins, usage, and
22 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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coding of nonverbal behavior; it also provided extensive visual documentation
for the communicative role of environments.
4. Also in 1956, Maslow and Mintzs study of the environmental effects of a
beautifulroom and an uglyroom was published. This oft-cited study is a
highlight in the history of environmental forces impinging on human
communication.
5. Franks comprehensive article Tactile Communicationappeared in 1957 and
suggested a number of testable hypotheses about touching in human interaction.
If the 1950s produced an increase in the number of nonverbal studies, the 1960s
must be classified as a nuclear explosion of the topic. Specific areas of the body
were the subject of extensive programs of research: Exlines work on eye behav-
ior; Davitzs work on vocal expressions of emotion, which culminated in The
Communication of Emotional Meaning in 1964; Hesss work on pupil dilation;
Sommers continued exploration of personal space and design; Goldman-Eislers
study of pauses and hesitations in spontaneous speech; and the study of a wide
range of body activity by Dittmann, Argyle, Kendon, Scheflen, and Mehrabian.
During this time, psychologist Robert Rosenthal and his colleagues brought
vividly to our attention the potential impact of nonverbal subtleties when they
showed how experimenters can affect the outcome of experimentsand teachers
can affect the intellectual growth of their studentsthrough their nonverbal
behavior (Rosenthal, 1966; Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968). Perhaps the classic
theoretical piece of the 1960s is Ekman and Friesens article on the origins,
usage, and coding of nonverbal behavior (Ekman & Friesen, 1969b). This article
distinguished five areas of nonverbal study that served as a guide for their own
research and ultimately that of many other researchers. These areas were
emblems, illustrators, affect displays, regulators, and adaptors.
The 1970s began with a journalists account of the study of nonverbal commu-
nication from the perspective of a handful of researchers. FastsBody Language
(1970), a best seller, was followed by a steady stream of books that attempted to
make nonverbal findings understandable and usable to the American public. These
books, in the interest of simplification and readability, often misrepresented
findings when recounting how to make a sale, detect deception, assert ones domi-
nance, obtain a sexual partner, and so on.
Although such books aroused the publics interest in nonverbal communication,
they incurred some anticipated fallout (Koivumaki, 1975). Readers were too often
left with the idea that reading nonverbal cues was the key to success in any human
encounter. Some of these books implied that single cues (legs apart) had single mean-
ings (sexual invitation). Not only is it important to look at nonverbal clusters of
behavior but also to recognize that nonverbal cues, like verbal ones, rarely have a
single denotative meaning. Some of these popularized accounts did not sufficiently
remind readers that the meaning of a particular behavior is often understood by
looking at the context in which the behavior occurs; for example, looking into some-
ones eyes may reflect affection in one situation and aggression in another.
Another common reaction to such books was the concern that once the non-
verbal code was broken we would be totally transparent; people would know
everything about us because we could not control these nonverbal signals. As
CHAPTER 1NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION:BASIC PERSPECTIVES 23
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noted earlier, we have varying degrees of conscious control over our nonverbal
behavior. Some behavior is very much under our control; other behavior is not,
but it may be once awareness is increased. Further, it may be that as soon as some-
one exhibits an understanding of your body language, you will modify it and make
adaptations. The 1970s were also a time of summarizing and synthesizing. Ekmans
research on the human face (Emotion in the Human Face, 1972, with Friesen and
Ellsworth); Mehrabians research on the meaning of nonverbal cues of immediacy,
status, and responsiveness (Nonverbal Communication, 1972b); Scheflens kinesic
research in the framework of general systems theory (Body Language and the Social
Order, 1972); Hesss study of pupil size (The Tell-Tale Eye, 1975b); Argyles study
of body movement and eye behavior (Bodily Communication, 1975; and Gaze and
Mutual Gaze, with Cook, 1976); MontagusTouching (1971); and Birdwhistells
Kinesics and Context (1970) were all attempts to bring together the growing litera-
ture, or a particular research program, in a single volume.
During the 1980s, some scholars continued to specialize, but others focused on
identifying the ways in which a variety of nonverbal signals work together to
accomplish common communicative goals: for example, getting someone to do
something for you, showing affection, and lying to someone (Patterson, 1983). It
became clear that we could not fully understand the role of nonverbal behavior in
accomplishing these goals unless we also looked at the role of co-occurring verbal
behavior and tried to develop theories about how various verbal and nonverbal
cues interact in the process (Bavelas & Chovil, 2006; Kendon, 1983; Streeck &
Knapp, 1992). Thus, we are gradually beginning to learn how to put the pieces
back together after several decades of separating them to examine them micro-
scopically. This trend is a manifestation of a larger movement to bring our research
efforts more in line with the way we know human communication occurs in lifes
laboratory (Archer, Akert, & Costanzo, 1993; Knapp, 1992; Patterson, 1984).
Therefore, nonverbal research continues to change in the following ways:
From studying noninteractive situations to studying interactive ones
From studying one person to studying both interactants
From studying a single point in time to studying changes over time
From studying single behaviors to studying multiple behaviors
From the view that we perceive everything that occurs to acknowledging that
we need to know more about how people perceive signals during interaction
From single-meaning and single-intent perspectives to acknowledging that
often multiple meanings occur and multiple goals exist
From a measurement perspective focused almost exclusively on frequency and
duration to one that also includes issues related to when and how a behavior
occurs
From attempting to control context by eliminating important and influential
elements to attempting to account for such effects
From studying only face-to-face interaction to examining the role of nonverbal
messages in mediated communication settings (e.g., Facebook, instant messages,
texting, email).
From an overemphasis on studying how strangers interact to one equally con-
cerned about how intimates interact
24 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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From studying only culture or only biology as possible explanations of behav-
ior to examining the roles both play
Such a brief historical view inevitably leaves out many important contributions
(see Knapp, 2006). The preceding discussion is simply an attempt to highlight
some important developments and depict a general background for our current
perspectives.
PERSPECTIVE 5: NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION IN EVERYDAY LIFE
Clearly, nonverbal signals are a critical part of all our communicative endea-
vors. Sometimes nonverbal signals are the most important part of our message.
Understanding and effectively using nonverbal behavior is crucial to our success
in virtually every social encounter we experience.
First impressions often have a strong impact on any given social interaction
and can affect subsequent interactions (Ambady & Skowronski, 2008). We also
know that people can make some valid inferences about others based on their
initial reading of the others nonverbal cues (Hall, Andrzejewski, & Yopchick,
2009). Thus, each interaction begins with both interactants trying to draw accurate
inferences about the other and simultaneously trying to manifest the verbal and
nonverbal behavior that will give them the best shot at accomplishing their com-
municative goals. This process continues as the interaction unfolds.
Nonverbal cues such as attire, eye gaze, smiling, posture, distance, and listener
responses are just as important as choosing the right wordssometimes more so,
as Lieutenant General David McKiernan found out. In June 2003, the Boston
Globe reported that he was taken off the list of possible candidates for the top
leadership position of Army Chief of Staff because Pentagon officials observed
bad body language.Apparently, McKiernan was standing with his arms crossed
and did not respond in positive ways during applause lineswhile listening to a
speech given by Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld in Iraq (Austin American
Statesman, 2003). Nonverbal messages are no less important in formal job inter-
views or in ongoing performance on the job, whether it involves public relations,
customer service, marketing, advertising, supervision, or leadership (DePaulo,
1992; Hecker & Stewart, 1988; Riggio, 2005). In one study, female job intervie-
wees were subjected to a sexually provocative comment. When they responded
with a fake smile (see Chapter 9) in an effort to get through this difficult situation,
males who were likely to engage in sexual harassment perceived these smiles as
flirtatious and the women as desirable. In addition to their inability to accurately
decode these fake smiles, these same men rated nonsmiling women as vulnerable
and confused (Woodzicka & LaFrance, 2005).
Some occupations and leadership positions require establishing or implement-
ing policies involving nonverbal messages. Some schools and businesses have rules
about hair length, facial hair, or appropriate clothing and artifacts; sexual harass-
ment cases may hinge on determining the type of touching that occurred; and
some airlines, broadcasters, and others have been involved in lawsuits charging dis-
crimination on the basis of physical appearance. The San Francisco City Council
was reportedly discussing a ban on certain nonverbal expressionssmirks, raised
CHAPTER 1NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION:BASIC PERSPECTIVES 25
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eyebrows, or loud guffawsin an effort to restore civility to council debates
(Reuters, 2003).
In a remarkable study, the faces of chief executive officers of the 25 highest
and 25 lowest performing U.S. companies were rated on their leadership ability
and their power-related traits of dominance, maturity, and competence. When any
effects due to age, affect, or attractiveness were removed, the highest ratings on
leadership and power-related traits were significantly related to their companys
profits (Rule & Ambady, 2008b).
While the consequences of the preceding studies are unquestionably important,
they are not life-threatening. But in nursephysician interactions during a surgical
procedure, effective nonverbal communication can literally make the difference
between life and death. One teenagers tragic death was the result of misreading
nonverbal signals: The teen was practicing sign language with his cousin, and
some of his gestures were believed by one gang to be signs of a rival gang, so they
shot the boy (Austin American Statesman, 2000). Other potentially harmful situa-
tions involving assault and abuse have been the subject of nonverbal studies.
One study analyzed the appearance and movements of people who walked
through one of the highest assault areas in New York City (Grayson & Stein,
1981). Then, prisoners who had knowledge of such matters were asked to view
the films of the potential victims and indicate the likelihood of assault. In addition
to finding that older people are a prime target, the researchers also found that
potential victims tended to move differently. Specifically, they took long or short
strides, not strides of medium length, and their body parts did not seem to move
in synchrony; that is, they seemed less graceful and fluid in their movement.
A related study, using different methods, found similar results and concluded that
a reduced vulnerability to attack is associated with any cluster of nonverbal signals
suggesting that a person has the energy to defend himself or herself and/or the
ability to escape with ease (Gunns, Johnston, & Hudson, 2002). Other studies
have tried to identify nonverbal characteristics that rapists use to select their
victims. Some rapists look for women who exhibit passivity, a lack of confidence,
and vulnerability; others prefer the exact opposite, wishing to put an uppity
woman in her place.The conclusion seems to recommend a nonverbal demeanor
that is confident yet not aggressive (Myers, Templer, & Brown, 1984).
Another study that assessed potentially aggressive acts focused on mothers who
abused their children (Givens, 1978a). It was noted that even while playing with
their children, these mothers communicated their dislike with nonverbal behavior
such as turning away or not smiling. Just as abusive and nonabusive mothers differ
in their nonverbal behavior, the children of abusive parents and nonabusive parents
differ in theirs (Hecht et al., 1986). Facial expressions of children in response to
violence on television may also have some predictive value for identifying aggres-
sive behavior (Ekman et al., 1972). In short, scientists are examining nonverbal
signals of both potential perpetrators of violence and potential victims of that
violence (Givens, 2007).
Once a person has been charged with a crime and the trial process begins, we
can see several important and influential sources of nonverbal cues (Peskin, 1980;
Pryor & Buchanan, 1984). One of this texts authors received a letter from an
attorney in Florida seeking information about nonverbal behavior in order to
26 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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identify the possible effects of an appellate judge making a decision based on the
written record of the trial without the benefit of seeing or hearing any nonverbal
signals. Because of the important implications of decisions made in courtrooms
and the desire to maintain impartial communication, almost every facet of the
courtroom process is being analyzed (Searcy, Duck, & Blanck, 2005). Judges are
cautioned to minimize possible signs of partiality in their voice and positioning. In
one study, mock jurors were very much aware of judges whose nonverbal behavior
suggested a lack of involvement in the proceedings and perceived this behavior
negatively (Burnett & Badzinski, 2005). Other studies confirm the belief that the
attitudes and nonverbal cues enacted by judges do in fact influence the outcome of
a trial (Blanck & Rosenthal, 1992). In Chapter 6, several studies are reported
concerning the effects of physically attractive witnesses and defendants. In some
cases, attorneys and witnesses have been videotaped in pretrial practice sessions to
determine whether they are conveying nonverbally any messages they want to
avoid. The study of nonverbal behavior is also important to the process of jury
selection. Although this attention to nonverbal signals emanating from prospective
jurors may indicate a degree of sensitivity that did not previously exist, we need not
worry that attorneys or social scientists will become so skilled that they can rig
juries (Saks, 1976).
A list of all the situations in which nonverbal communication plays a signifi-
cant role would be almost endless and would include areas such as dance, theater,
music, film, and photography. The nonverbal symbolism of various ceremonies and
ritualsthe trappings of the marriage ceremony, Christmas decorations, religious
rituals, funerals, and so onprovide stimuli that guide the responses of those
involved.
From this broad array of situations in which nonverbal communication plays a
central role, we have selected some areas that we feel are particularly meaningful
and discuss them further. In Chapter 12, we examine nonverbal behavior used in
communicating intimacy, dominance or status, identity, deception, and interaction
management. Chapter 13 is devoted to an analysis of nonverbal signals in advertis-
ing, politics, education, culture, health care, and technology.
SUMMARY
The term nonverbal is commonly used to
describe all human communication events that
transcend spoken or written words. At the same
time, we should realize that these nonverbal
events and behaviors can be interpreted through
verbal symbols. We also found that any classi-
fication scheme that separates things into two
discrete categoriesverbal/nonverbal, left/right
brain, vocal/nonvocal, and so onwill not be
able to account for factors that do not seem to
fit either category. We might more appropriately
think of behaviors as existing on a continuum,
with some behaviors overlapping two continua.
We encode and decode nonverbal behaviors
with varying degrees of awareness and control.
There are times when our responses are carefully
planned, and we are very much aware of what we
are doing; there are other times when our responses
occur more automatically, and little conscious
planning and awareness is associated with them.
The decoding of nonverbal signals is often
done with the right hemisphere of the brain, but
a considerable overlapping of functions between
right and left hemispheres occursespecially if
one side has to compensate due to surgery or
injury on the other hemisphere.
CHAPTER 1NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION:BASIC PERSPECTIVES 27
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The theoretical writings and research on non-
verbal communication can be broken down into
the following three areas:
1. The communication environment (physical
and spatial)
2. The communicators physical characteristics
3. Body movement and position (gestures,
posture, touching, facial expressions, eye
behavior, and vocal behavior)
Nonverbal communication should not be
studied as an isolated phenomenon but as an
inseparable part of the total communication
process. The relationship between verbal and
nonverbal behavior was illustrated in our dis-
cussion of how nonverbal behavior functions
in repeating, conflicting with, substituting for,
complementing, accenting/moderating, and regu-
lating verbal communication. Nonverbal com-
munication is important because of its role in
the total communication system, the tremendous
quantity of informational cues it gives in any
particular situation, and its use in fundamental
areas of our daily life.
This chapter also reviewed some of the his-
torical highlights, noting the current influence
of the works of Darwin, Efron, Birdwhistell,
Hall, Ruesch and Kees, Mehrabian, Rosenthal,
Ekman and Friesen, and others. We reviewed
the important roles and shortcomings of the
popular literature. The chapter concluded with
an account of the prevalence and importance
of nonverbal signals in selected areas of our
daily life.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Identify a situation in which you believe
verbal behavior was clearly more important
to the outcome of an interaction than non-
verbal behavior. Explain why.
2. Identify a situation in which you would give
more credibility to a persons verbal behavior
when verbal and nonverbal behavior convey
different messages.
3. Discuss the most unusual or subtle nonverbal
signal or signals you have observed in an
interaction partner. What helped you assess
their meaning?
4. If you could get an instant and true answer to
any question about nonverbal communica-
tion, what would your question be?
READING RESOURCES
Because our concern is the scientific study of nonverbal
communication, we include many scholarly citations
in this books chapters. In addition to these specific
research works, the following are good general resources
for the student of nonverbal communication:
Hall, J. A., & Bernieri, F. J. (Eds.). (2001). Interper-
sonal sensitivity:Theory and measurement.
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Hall, J. A., & Knapp, M. L. (Eds.). (2013). Handbook
of nonverbal communication. Berlin: de Gruyter
Mouton.
Harrigan, J. A., Rosenthal, R., & Scherer, K. R. (Eds.).
(2005). The new handbook of methods in
nonverbal behavior research. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Manusov, V. (Ed.). (2004). The sourcebook of non-
verbal measures: Going beyond words. Mahwah,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Manusov, V. L., & Patterson, M. L. (Eds.). (2006).
The Sage handbook of nonverbal communication.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
28 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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THE ROOTS OF NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR
[CHAPTER2]
In 1967, when David Reimer was 8 months old, his genitals were accidentally
mutilated when he was being circumcised. Subsequently, on the advice of physi-
cians, Davids parents agreed to a surgical sex change and set about raising David
as a girl. Nurture, it was believed, would triumph over nature, and David would
become Brenda.Despite 12 years of social, mental, and hormonal conditioning,
David never felt he was a girl. His parents gave him dolls, dressed him as a girl,
and tried in every way to reinforce his identity as Brenda. But his twin brother
expressed what others observed as well: I recognized Brenda as my sister, but
she never, ever acted the part when I say there was nothing feminine about
Brenda I mean there was nothing feminine. She walked like a guy. Sat with her
legs apart. She talked about guy things she played with my toys(Colapinto,
2000, p. 57). It was not that Brenda did not learn what others were teaching
her about how to behave like a girl. Nurture played its part. But what surprised
everyone involved in this real-life nature/nurture experiment was the powerful
influence of genetic, or hardwired, aspects of sexual identity.
During the 20th century, the question of whether human behavior is influenced
more by nature or nurture was hotly debated. For many years the prevailing view
was that all human behavior was the result of learning. The behaviorists believed
that any differences between individuals could be erased if they experienced the
same environmental stimuli. In short, genetic heritage was presumed to be malleable.
Today, scientists tend to reject the either/or approach to the debate. Instead of trying
to argue that all of our behavior is primarily guided by nature or nurture, most
As we look back on a long phylogenetic history, which has determined our present
day anatomical, physiological, and biochemical status, it would be simply
astounding if it were found not to affect our behavior also.
T. K. Pitcairn and I. Eibl-Eibesfeldt
29
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believe it is wise to assume that there may be both a nature and a nurture component
associated with any given behavior that we exhibit. No doubt much of our non-
verbal behavior has both innate and learned, including imitative, aspects.
Ekman and Friesen (1969), whose work in this area is detailed later, outline
three primary sources of our nonverbal behavior:
1. Inherited neurological programs
2. Experience common to all members of the species (e.g., regardless of culture,
the hands are used to place food in the mouth)
3. Experience that varies with culture, class, family, or the individual
Biological and cultural forces overlap in many important ways. Some common
biological processes can be used to communicatefor example, breathing becomes
a sigh of relief, grief, or boredom; a hiccup becomes an imitation of a drunks
behavior; audible blowing through ones nose may be interpreted as a snort of
scorn; and coughing becomes ahem.Later in this chapter, we discuss studies
that suggest that some aspects of facial expressions of emotion are inherited and
common to members of the human species. These studies, however, do not negate
the importance of our cultural learning in manifesting these expressions. The
neurological program for any given facial expression can be altered or modified by
learned display rulesspecific to our culture, such as men should not cry in
public. Different stimuli may trigger a given facial expression, again depending on
ones cultural training. A snake may evoke an expression of fear in one culture
and bring out an expression of joy in another (e.g., because it is an important
food source). The society we grow up in is also largely responsible for the way we
blend two or more emotional expressions, such as showing features of surprise and
anger at the same time.
Studies of birds show clearly the joint impact of biology and environment on
behavior. The European male robin attacks strange robins that enter his territory
during the breeding season. Research using stuffed models has shown that the red
breast alone triggers this attack mechanism. The female robin who shares the nest,
however, also has a red breast and is not attacked. Thus, this aggressive behavior,
which is believed to be innate, is modified by certain conditions in the environment
or by the situation that calls forth the response. As another example, some birds
instinctively sing a song common to their own species without ever having heard
another bird sing the song. These birds may, on hearing the songs of their particu-
lar group, develop a variation on the melody that reflects a local dialect. It has also
been noted that without exposure to mature songs, the young birds song remains
rudimentary and imperfect. And even when a bird is born with its basic song, it
may have to learn to whom the call should be addressed, and under what circum-
stances, and how to recognize signals from other birds. Many of the inherited
components of human behavior can be modified similarly. It is like our human
predisposition for, or capacity to learn, verbal language (Lenneberg, 1969; Pinker,
1994). Although we are born with the capacity to learn language, it is not learned
without cultural training. Children isolated from human contact do not develop
linguistic competence. Some nonverbal signals probably depend primarily on inher-
ited neurological programs; others probably depend primarily on environmental
learning; and, of course, many behaviors are influenced by both.
30 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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Finally, the answer to the nature/nurture issue concerning nonverbal behavior
varies with the behavior under consideration. As we see in Chapter 9, there may be
multiple origins of facial expressions of emotion. Certain nervous mannerisms or self-
touching gestures may be learned primarily as we learn to perform certain tasks and
cope with various interpersonal experiences. Some behaviors may be primarily the
product of imitating others. Some hand gestures, such as the thumbs-up gesture, are
primarily culture specific, but certain patterns of eye gaze seem to have a strong
genetic component. The stronger the learned component of nonverbal behavior, the
more we would expect to find variations across cultural, class, and ethnic lines. Note,
however, that a behavior that varies from group to group may still have a common
biological base, after cultural teachings are stripped away. How can we ever know
that a single behavior or pattern of behavior has a common biological base?
THE DEVELOPMENT OF NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR
ACROSS EVOLUTIONARY TIME
Human beings, like other species, have evolved through a process of adaptation to
changing conditions (Barkow, Cosmides, & Tooby, 1992). Which nonverbal behaviors
have ancient roots in human history? On what basis do social scientists conclude that a
behavior or behavioral pattern includes an inherited component? It is not an easy task.
Some of our current behavioral displays are only fragments of larger patterns no
longer enacted in their entirety; some behaviors now embedded in rituals have little to
do with their original function; and some behavior that seems to serve one function
may be associated with something completelydifferent;forexample,self-grooming
may be the result of confusion or frustration in achieving a goal rather than a behavior
enacted for self-preservation, courtship, or cleanliness goals. And studying the fossil
record is not much help in understanding the biological roots of behavior. Despite the
difficulties inherent in any questions of phylogenyin this case, the roots of behavior
in human evolutionary historyresearchers continue to make important discoveries.
Real connections to human reproductive success and cross-cultural similarities have
been shown for various aspects of facial attractiveness, such as symmetry, as well as the
waisthip ratio (see Chapter 6), which indicatestheymayhaveplayedaroleintheevo-
lution of our species (Floyd, 2006; Rhodes & Zebrowitz, 2002).
But the best evidence for inferences about whether a behavior has been in-
herited and is genetically transmitted to every member of the human species is
derived from as many of the following five research perspectives as possible. If we
can compile strong evidence in all five of these perspectives, our confidence in a
phylogenetic dimension reaches the highest level.
1. Evidence from sensory deprivationnoting the manifestation of a behavior in
blind and/or deaf people who could not have learned it through visual or
auditory channels
2. Evidence from neonatesobserving behaviors displayed within minutes or
hours after birth
3. Evidence from identical twins reared in different environmentsidentifying the
behavioral similarities of people whose gene structure is known to be virtually
identical and whose learning environment is known to be very different
CHAPTER 2THE ROOTS OF NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR 31
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4. Evidence from other animalsshowing an evolutionary continuity of a
behavior up to and including our closest relatives, nonhuman primates
5. Evidence from multicultural studiesobserving the manifestation of similar
behaviors used for similar purposes in other cultures around the world, both
literate and preliterate
Research from each of these perspectivesmakesuptheremainderofthischapter.
The nonverbal behavior that has received the most scrutiny in each perspective is the
facial expression of emotion. But as BuckandPowers(2006)remindus,theoriginof
any behavioral display by an individual communicator is only part of the story. Evolu-
tion may also be responsible for preattunementsthat structure a personspercep-
tions of these behavioral displays. For example, physical attractiveness is perceived
with a high degree of consistency, and certain facial expressions of emotion have been
decoded accurately in a variety of cultures around the world. According to Buck and
Powers, this interplay between biologically structured displays and preattunements
creates the basis for the socialorganizationofthespecies(p. 120).
EVIDENCE FROM SENSORY DEPRIVATION
Many have observed the early appearance of nonverbal behavior in children.
Perhaps the behaviors are learned quickly. To verify such a hypothesis, we need to
examine children who, because of being blind and deaf at birth, could not learn
such behaviors from visual or auditory cues. Eibl-Eibesfeldt (1973, 1975; Pitcairn &
Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1976) filmed several blind/deaf children between the ages of 2 and
10 and reached conclusions similar to those of others who have systematically
compared the behavior of blind/deaf children with sighted/hearing children. His
conclusion was that the spontaneous expressions of sadness, crying, laughing,
smiling, pouting, anger, surprise, and fear are not significantly different in blind/
deaf children. Smiling, crying, and laughing sequences filmed by Eibl-Eibesfeldt are
shown in Figure 2-1, Figure 2-2, and Figure 2-3.
Some might argue that such expressions could be learned by blind/deaf
children by touching or through a slow reinforcement program. Eibl-Eibesfeldt
points out, however, that even babies born with no arms or other severe birth
defects because their mothers took the drug thalidomide while they were pregnant,
as well as children who could hardly be taught to raise a spoon to their mouths,
showed similar expressions.
Galati, Scherer, and Ricci-Bitti (1997), Galati, Miceli, and Sini (2001), and Galati,
Sini, Schmidt, and Tinti (2003) found similar results with sighted and congenitally
blind children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years. Spontaneous expressions of
sadness, anger, joy, fear, disgust, surprise, and interest were filmed and coded with
Ekman and Friesens Facial Action Coding System (see Chapter 9). There were few
differences between the expressions of the sighted and blind children, and judges who
looked at the faces were able to accurately identify the situations that triggered the
expressions for both. Thus, being able to see the facial expressions of others does not
seem to provide a significant advantage in being able to make basic facial displays.
In addition to facial expressions, the deaf/blind children studied by Eibl-Eibesfeldt
also showed other patterns of movement exhibited by sighted children. They sought
32 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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contact with others by stretching out one or both hands, wanted to be embraced and
caressed when distressed, and, as the pictures in Figure 2-4 reveal, showed a remark-
ably familiar sequence of refusal gestures.
Eibl-Eibesfeldt also reports some interesting eye patterns of blind children.
When he complimented a 10-year-old girl on her piano playing, she looked at
him, coyly looked down and away, and then looked at him again. A similar
sequence was recorded for an 11-year-old boy when asked about his girlfriend.
This sequence of turning toward and away is also seen in sighted children under
similar circumstances. Magnusson (2006) observed some similarities in the way
sighted and blind communicators managed conversational turn-taking and dis-
played turn exchange and regulation, like nodding and smiling, but fewer similari-
ties were observed with the congenitally blind than with those whose blindness was
the result of an accident. Lastly, hearing individuals can decode the dynamic facial
displays used in American Sign Language by the deaf to communicate emotion
states (e.g., anger, surprise) and language-specific grammatical constructs,such
as questions about who, what, or why, presumably because of similarities in the
facial expressions used by both groups of people (Grossman & Kegl, 2007).
ab
cd
FIGURE 2-1
Blind/deaf smiling response filmed by Eibl-Eibesfeldt. The head is lifted and tilted back as the intensity increases.
Source: From I. Eibl-Eibesfeldt, The Expressive Behavior of the Deaf-and Blind Born,in M. von Cranach and I. Vine, Social Communication
and Movement. New York: Academic Press, 1973 and with permission from Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt.
CHAPTER 2THE ROOTS OF NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR 33
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However, the facial expressions of blind/deaf children and blind children may
be different in some ways when compared with those of sighted and hearing
children. These differences are particularly evident as the children grow older and
learn certain display rules by looking at the way others perform expressions. For
example, subtle gradations in the onset and passing of expressions were not
observed as often in the blind/deaf children; their expressions seemed to quickly
ab
cd
ef
FIGURE 2-2
Blind/deaf crying response filmed by Eibl-Eibesfeldt.
Source: Filmed by I. Eibl-Eibesfeldt in T. K. Pitcairn and I. Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Concerning the Evolution of Nonverbal Communication in Man,
in M. E. Hahn and E. C. Simmel, Communicative Behavior and Evolution. New York: Academic Press, 1976.
34 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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appear and suddenly disappear, leaving the face blank. Display rules about the
suitable intensity of expressions is another lesson blind/deaf children appear to be
less familiar with; for example, how intense crying and laughing should be in various
situations. Sighted children also seemed more likely than blind children to learn a dis-
play rule for masking negative emotions (Galati, Miceli, & Sini, 2001; Galati, Sini,
Schmidt, & Tinti, 2003). The general absence of facial blends among the blind/deaf
suggests that this may also depend on learning. Making voluntary expressionsthat
is, mimicking facial expressionsis also a learned behavior, and young deaf children
do not perform this skill very well. But at least one study suggests that congenital
blindness does not prevent adults from producing expressions that are as accurately
decoded as those of sighted adults (Galati, Scherer, & Ricci-Bitti, 1997). All of these
findings point to a joint role for innate predispositions and social learning.
FIGURE 2-3
Blind/deaf laughing response filmed by Eibl-Eibesfeldt.
Source: From I. Eibl-Eibesfeldt, The Expressive Behavior of the Deaf-and Blind Born,in M. von Cranach and I. Vine, Social Communication
and Movement. New York: Academic Press, 1973 and with permission from Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt.
CHAPTER 2THE ROOTS OF NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR 35
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Thus far, the focus has been on the encoding (i.e., production) of nonverbal
information among the blind/deaf. Regarding decoding nonverbal cues, children
who have been blind/deaf since birth obviously have not had the opportunity to
see other peoples facial expressions/to hear people speak. However, recent tech-
nological advanceswith more surely to comemay afford these children the
opportunity to decode such nonverbal information for the first time. Cochlear
implants (CI), for example, permit deaf children to perceive sound. Research with
children who had been deaf since infancy and later equipped with a CI in their
right ear found that, although these children could identify the emotional meaning
of facial expressions, they had difficulty recognizing emotion in voices (Hopyan-
Misakyan, Gordon, Dennis, & Papsin, 2009). This difficulty might stem from
shortcomings in the CI design or suggest that there is a critical period for learning
how to decode emotion cues from voices.
ab
cd
ef
FIGURE 2-4
A blind/deaf child refusing an offer of a tortoise. The child sniffs at the object and pushes it back
while simultaneously lifting her head in a movement of withdrawal. Finally, she puts out her
hand in a gesture of warding off.
Source: From I. Eibl-Eibesfeldt, The Expressive Behavior of the Deaf-and Blind Born,in M. von Cranach and
I. Vine, Social Communication and Movement. New York: Academic Press, 1973 and with permission from Irenäus
Eibl-Eibesfeldt.
36 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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EVIDENCE FROM INFANTS
There is evidence that newborns come into this world prepared to receive certain
nonverbal cues from their mothers. At the neurological level, for example, new-
borns appear to respond differently to their mothers breast milk than they do to
formula, showing greater oxygenated blood flow to the orbitofrontal region of
their brain to the former than to the latter (Aoyama et al., 2010). At the behavioral
level, newborns show less distress in response to heel sticks when they are exposed
to the odor of their own mothers breast milk as opposed to that of another
woman or formula (Nishitani et al., 2009). These results do not imply that new-
borns do not learn maternal odors outside the womb. Indeed, there is evidence
that newborns have a sensitive period for learning new odors (minutes after birth)
(Romantshik, Porter, Tillmann, & Varendi, 2007). However, particularly impor-
tant maternal nonverbal cues, such as those linked to sustenance, may be learned
in utero, due to their importance in ensuring the survival of the newborn.
Newborn babies are born ready to process certain nonverbal cues that they
could not have learned in utero, such as the human face (Pascalis & Kelly, 2009),
as well as the jointly occurring gaze and voice of an adult (Guellai & Streri,
2011), as they presumably begin the task of identifying others. In addition, within
days of birth, newborns spend more time looking at happy faces than fearful ones,
suggesting that experiences outside the womb have shaped their preference for
happy expressions (Farroni, Menon, Rigato, & Johnson, 2007).
DID YOU MAKE SCENTS TO YOUR MOTHER EVEN AT BIRTH?
Yes!
Our signature communicates our uniqueness as an
individual to others. As adults, others recognize who we
are by how we write our name. At birth, our mothers can
recognize who we are by how we smell.Itappearswe
have an olfactory signature(see Chapter 6). As evi-
dence of this, postpartum women are able to quickly tell
by scent alone which clothes were worn by their baby as
opposed to another womansbaby.
A human mothers ability to recognize her offspring by
scent would be an example of evolutionary conservation.
That ability is there because, presumably, it has been an
effective means of offspring recognition among animals over a great span of time. Offspring recognition is
important because it is needed for the establishment and maintenance of the parentchild bond. Without that
bond, an offspringand thus the parentsgenesmight not survive. Therefore, being able to recognize an
offsprings olfactory signature must have worked (in an evolutionary sense) for mothers, whether she is a
ewe or human.
Human mothers can identify their offspring using other nonverbal cues as well, including the cry of their
baby, the tactile characteristics of their babys hand, and the visual features of their babys face. Thus, infant rec-
ognition among human mothers likely involves the integration of multiple nonverbal cues, which they quickly
associate with their baby. This ability distinguishes humans from ungulates in which infant recognition
depends more heavily on offspring odor, and is likely due to the greatly expanded neocortex in humans.
Kati Molin/Shutterstock.com
CHAPTER 2THE ROOTS OF NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR 37
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Newborn babies also seem to have the facial muscle actions necessary to
express virtually all the basic affect displays of adults (Oster & Ekman, 1978).
The questions of interest in the remainder of this section are whether newborns
show affect displays resembling those of adults, and if so, do those displays convey
the same emotions as they do in adults? Here the evidence is mixed, partly because
of intrinsic difficulties in determining what emotion a baby is experiencing.
Researchers disagree on this important question: Does an infants facial reper-
toire consist of undifferentiated expressions of arousal and distress, which are then
shaped by experience, or is a baby born with a biologically based predisposition
to display the full repertoire of emotional expressions identified in adults? Much
research has been inspired by the latter view, which is embodied in what has become
known as differential emotions theory (Izard, 1977; Izard & Malatesta, 1987). This
proposes a strong genetic basis for facial expressions, and thus, emotions would
produce the same distinctive facial patterns in both infants and adults.
Infants only a few months old do display some expressions consistent with
prototypical emotional displays in adultsspecifically expressions for joy, surprise,
and interest (Oster, Hegley, & Nagel, 1992). These expressions are also easily rec-
ognizable by untrained observers as representing those emotions. This does not
mean, of course, that the infants were actually experiencing those emotions, only
that the facial configurations match the adult prototypes (Camras, 1994). For the
negative emotions, however, evidence indicates that discrete expressions correspond-
ing to adultsexpressions of emotions such as fear, anger, disgust, and sadness do
not exist in young infants (Camras, Sullivan, & Michel, 1993; Oster, Hegley, &
Nagel, 1992). Stenberg, Campos, and Emde (1983), though, found the capacity
to express anger to be well developed in infants by 7 months of age, and that the
attending facial expression was reliably detected in the absence of contextual
information.
To date, the data from infant studies do not provide complete support for
a biological root to discrete facial expressions of emotion. Moreover, it has been
pointed out that too much emphasis on finding adultsexpressions in infants
might lead researchers to make several errors, including the following:
1. They may reach erroneous conclusions about what emotions are actually being
felt; just because an infant and an adult show the same expression, we do not
know they are feeling the same emotion.
2. They may fail to observe distinctive infant emotional expressions that do not
happen to match up with adult expressions (Barrett, 1993; Oster, Hegley, &
Nagel, 1992).
All researchers seem to agree, however, that infantsfaces convey information
about their states; that more research is needed to uncover exactly what is being
conveyed and what regularities exist in the developmental unfolding of emotional
expression; and that socialization still plays a crucial role.
The study of pain expression in infants and adults also yields information on the
biological basis of expression and seems a less debatable topic than the expression
of basic emotions. It is easy to argue that the adaptive advantage of being able to
engage adult care from the earliest moments of life would lead to the evolution of
an innate program for displaying pain (Prkachin & Craig, 1995). Expressions of
38 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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pain in infants, even in newborns, are highly similar to those observed in adults.
These are the five most consistently seen facial movements:
1. A lowered brow
2. Eyes squeezed tightly shut
3. Vertical wrinkles at the side of the nose (the nasolabial furrow)
4. Open lips and mouth
5. A taut, cupped tongue (Grunau & Craig, 1990)
Computer-based technology has been used to measure how a neonates face
changes in expression after he or she has been exposed to a painful stimulus, such
as a heel stick. These changes include mouth opening, drawing in of the eyebrows,
and closing of the eyes (Schiavenato et al., 2008). Moreover, when a male neonate
is experiencing more pain (e.g., from a circumcision without analgesia), he opens his
mouth vertically wider than does a male neonate feeling less pain (e.g., from a heel
stick) (Schiavenato, Butler-OHara, & Scovanner, 2011). A wider mouth may be an
important cue to felt pain to know, especially given that, although adults routinely rec-
ognize facial signs of pain, there is evidence that observers also tend to underestimate
the extent of pain in infants (and adults for that matter) (Prkachin & Craig, 1995).
Research on imitation highlights the complex intertwining of biology and
socialization in the development of expression. The early ability to imitate others
expressions may be inherited and may ultimately play a role in the development of
various facial displays. Meltzoff and Moore (1977, 1983a, 1983b) demonstrated
that 12- to 21-day-old infants imitated adults who performed four actions: tongue
protrusion, mouth opening, lip protrusion, and sequential finger movement (see
Figure 2-5). Subsequent research replicated the findings for tongue protrusion and
mouth opening for neonates 0.7 to 71 hours old. Their experiments seem to negate
explanations for such behavior based on innate releasing mechanisms similar to
those found in many animals as well as on learning processes linked to caregiver
behavior. Instead, they argue that infants are born with the ability to use what they
call intermodal equivalencies, which means the infant is able to use the equivalence
between the act seen and the act done as the fundamental basis for generating the
behavioral match.Perception and production, then, are closely linked and mediated
by a common representational system from birth (cf., Bargh & Chartrand, 1999).
The Meltzoff and Moore research is complemented by other studies (Field,
Woodson, Greenberg, & Cohen, 1982) that examined the imitation of specific
facial displays of emotion by 2-day-old infants (see Figure 2-6). These findings sup-
port those of Meltzoff and Moore and indicate that the ability to discriminate and
imitate happy, sad, and surprised facial expressions is one with which children
enter their social environment.
Perhaps even more significant for understanding the early processes of learning
and socialization is the finding that 9-month-old infants can imitate behavior from
memory after a 24-hour delay (Meltzoff, 1985, 1988a; Meltzoff & Gopnik, 1989),
and 14-month-olds can accurately imitate a sequence of acts after a weeksdelay
(Meltzoff, 1988b). The early integration of cognitive, linguistic, and communicative
development is also demonstrated by the infantsabilitytoprocessvisuallytheconnec-
tion between mouth shape and sound; for example, that the ahsound comes from a
mouth with the lips wide open and the eesound comes from a mouth with corners
pulled back (Kuhl & Meltzoff, 1982). In one study, 4- and 6-month-old infants were
CHAPTER 2THE ROOTS OF NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR 39
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able to discriminate languages, French andEnglish,fromthefacialmovementthey
saw on silent videotapes (Weikum et al., 2007).
EVIDENCE FROM TWIN STUDIES
Monozygotic (i.e., identical) twins are sometimes separated at birth and reared in
very different environments. Because their genetic similarity is known, it is possible
to compare and contrast their abilities and behavior to determine how much nature
and nurture contribute to each.
Plomin (1989) provided an extensive review of the research using identical and
fraternal twins as well as adopted children. This research shows a substantial hered-
itary influenceusually about 50 percent for identical twinson the following
items: job satisfaction; religious interests, attitudes, and values; IQ; vocational inter-
ests; reading disability; mental retardation; extraversion; emotionality; sociability;
alcoholism; and delinquency and criminal behavior. Extensive studies at the University
of Minnesota of identical twins reared apart indicate the amount of genetic
influence on a behavior can be high, but it varies with the behavior in question.
ab c
FIGURE 2-5
Sample photographs from videotape recordings of 2- to 3-week-old infants imitating (a) tongue
protusion, (b) mouth opening, and (c) lip protrusion demonstrated by an adult experimenter.
Source: Meltzoff, A. N., & Moore, M. K. (1977). Imitation of facial and manual gestures by human neonates.
Science, 198,7578. Reprinted with permission from AAAS.
40 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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FIGURE 2-6
Sample photographs of models happy, sad, and surprised expressions and infants corresponding
expressions.
Source: Field, T., Woodson, R., Greenberg, R. & Cohen, D. (1982) Discrimination and imitation of facial expressions
by neonates. Science, 218(8), 179181. Tiffany.
CHAPTER 2THE ROOTS OF NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR 41
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General intelligence, for example, has a fairly strong genetic influence50 to 70
percentwhereas personality traits are about 50 percent genetic, occupational
interests 40 percent, and social attitudes about 34 percent (Segal, 1999). The
genetic influence on behaviors can be substantial, but nongenetic factors such
as family and nonfamily environment are responsible for at least half of the
variance in most complex behaviors. Even though genes may account for half of
the variance associated with a particular behavior, note that this is almost never a
highly deterministic, single-gene influence. And just because we have a genetically
based predisposition to behave in a particular way does not mean that these beha-
viors are unalterable or that they will even be displayed.
Despite the intriguing results from a variety of behavioral areas, there is very
little systematic research that bears specifically on nonverbal behavior. Pairs of
monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins from the Minnesota Study of Twins
Reared Apart project had their facial expressions coded as they watched emotion-
inducing films (Kendler et al., 2008). MZ twins showed greater similarity in their
facial expressions than did DZ twins, suggesting the heritability of facial displays
of emotion. In another analysis of identical twins reared apart, some statistical evi-
dence showed striking similarities between twins in vocal pitch, tone, and talkative-
ness (Farber, 1981). Other mannerisms such as posture, laughter, style of walking,
head turning, and wrist flicking were also observed as more alike than any quanti-
fiable trait the observers were able to measure.Farber goes on to say, Possibly the
most interesting observation over the years was that many sets had identical body
languages’—that is, they unconsciously moved and gestured in the same way, even
when they had not had an opportunity for mutual identification(p. 90).
Researchers at the University of Minnesota Center for Twin and Adoption
Research echo these observations (Bouchard, 1984, 1987; Segal, 1999). For example,
Segal says,
One of my favorite tasks was faithfully capturing hand gestures, head positions, foot
tapping and energy level in one-hour videotaped sessions of each twin alone, followed
by half-hour videotaped sessions of the twins together. Distinctive physical expressions
co-occurring in identical twins reared apart suggest that genetic factors are involved.
Jerry Levey and Mark Newman, identical [twin] volunteer firemen, held pinky fingers
under cans of Budweiser beer long before they met. [See Figure 2-7] Other pairs were
notorious for swaying side-to-side while walking, accenting long slender fingers with
abundant jewelry, and belting out warm, rich laughter. (pp. 143144)
When asked to stand against a wall for a series of photographs, identical twins in
the University of Minnesota studies frequently assumed the same posture and
hand positions; this happened only occasionally with fraternal twins reared apart.
One pair of identical male twins reared apart had grown similar beards, had their
hair cut similarly, and wore similar shirts and wire-rimmed glasses. Their photo
shows them both with thumbs hooked into their pants tops. Another pair of female
twins both started crying at the slightest provocation, and it was later learned that
each had behaved in this manner since childhood. These unsystematic observations
do not prove anything about heredity and nonverbal behavior; they only suggest
intriguing avenues for research.
Most of the studies comparing twins reared apart have emphasized responses to
paper-and-pencil tests. But it seems reasonable to assume that detailed observational
42 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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studies will indicate a hereditary influence associated with behavior as well. For
example, studies of twins show an inherited component to the trait of extraversion
(Pedersen, Plomin, McClearn, & Friberg, 1988; Viken, Rose, Kaprio, & Koskenvuo,
1994), and we know that certain nonverbal behaviors, such as faster speech, are
associated with the trait of extraversion. Therefore, it is possible that these and
other nonverbal cues related to extraversion are common between identical
twins. Twin studies have also shown a strong hereditary basis for social anxiety
(Beatty, Heisel, Hall, Levine, & LaFrance, 2002; Beatty, Marshall, & Rudd, 2001).
Nonverbal behaviors associated with nervousness and tension are logically linked to
social anxiety, but we also know learning can play an important role in controlling
such behavior. Other relationship styles such as aggressiveness, in which heredity also
seems to play an important part, may eventually reveal more about the extent to which
nonverbal behavior has an innate foundation. But until more twin studies are done in
which nonverbal behavior is the specific focus, we have to rely too much on tantaliz-
ing, but incomplete, anecdotal observations and reasoned inferences.
Brain imaging studies should offer one intriguing avenue of insight into the
possible role of genes in individual differences in the processing of nonverbal
behavior. Anokhin, Golosheykin, and Heath (2010), for example, recorded the
brain activity (specifically, event-related brain potentials [ERPs]) of MZ and DZ
twins who watched a face change in expression from neutral, happy, and fearful.
The authors noted that 36 to 64 percent of the individual variation in the ERPs
to these changes in facial expression can be attributed to genetic factors.
FIGURE 2-7
Identical twins Jerry Levey and Mark Newman were reared apart yet both became volunteer firefighters. For a
photograph of how they both hold a beer can with a pinky finger underneath, see Segal (1999, p. 144).
Dr. Nancy L. Segal
CHAPTER 2THE ROOTS OF NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR 43
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EVIDENCE FROM NONHUMAN PRIMATES
Human beings are primates, as are apes and monkeys. If we observe our nonhu-
man primate relatives manifesting behaviors similar to ours in similar situations,
we are more confident that such behavior has phylogenetic origins.
For Charles Darwin, evidence of similarities in expressive behavior across differ-
ent species constituted important support for his theory of evolution. For Darwin,
the increasing use of the face, voice, and body for emotional and communica-
tive purposes demonstrated the process of evolutionary advancement. Darwin
wrote:
With mankind some expressions, such as the bristling of the hair under the influence
of extreme terror, or the uncovering of the teeth under that of furious rage, can hardly
be understood, except on the belief that man once existed in a much lower and animal-
like condition. The community of certain expressions in distinct, though allied species,
as in the movements of the same facial muscles during laughter by man and by various
monkeys, is rendered somewhat more intelligible if we believe in their descent from a
common progenitor. (1872/1998, p. 19)
Among vertebrates, the functionality of a rich repertoire of expressive and signaling
behaviors is clearly related to the complexity of a speciessocial organization. We
need only compare the differing number of facial muscles possessed by a lizard to
those of a monkey to understand why Darwin considered expression a critical link
in the argument for evolution.
Before we begin emphasizing similarities, we should acknowledge some impor-
tant differences in human and nonhuman primates. Human beings make little use
of changes in body color, but we do have an extensive repertoire of gestures that
attend our verbal language. Apes, monkeys, and chimpanzees use almost no refer-
ential gestures with each other (Pika, Liebal, Call, & Tomasello, 2005; Pika &
Mitani, 2006). We also seem to have a greater variety of facial blends, and our
response repertoire is not nearly as limited to immediate and direct stimuli. And
although other animals are capable of complex acts, the level of complexity, con-
trol, and modification shown by the human animal may be hard to match.
Behavioral similarities are often linked to common biological and social pro-
blems that confront human and nonhuman primates: for example, mating, groom-
ing, avoiding pain, expressing emotional states, rearing children, cooperating in
groups, developing leadership hierarchies, defending, establishing contact, and main-
taining relationships. Chimpanzees, like humans, form political alliances to gain
power, show empathy for those in distress, do favors for others, and reconcile after
a fight with a touch or embrace (de Waal, 2002). Figure 2-8 shows some of these sim-
ilarities in grooming and bodily contact. Of the many behaviors that might be
explored for evolutionary roots (Altmann, 1968; Thorpe, 1972; van Hooff, 1973),
we focus on three: facial expressions, perception of the color red on conspecifics,
and eye behavior during greetings.
Studies comparing the facial displays of nonhuman primates and human beings
find that the tense-mouth displayof nonhuman primates (see Figure 2-9) shows
social and morphological kinship to anger on human faces. When circumstances trig-
ger a combination of anger and fear, nonhuman primates manifest a threat display
(see Figure 2-10 and Figure 2-11). In human beings, this most closely resembles a
44 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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FIGURE 2-8
Upper left: Signaling connection in human couple. Upper right: Two chimpanzees signaling
connection. Middle left: Rhesus monkey mother with child. Middle right: Sonjo children
clasping each other in fright. Lower left: Social grooming of vervet monkeys. Lower right: Social
grooming among Balinese women.
Source: Upper left, Middle left, Middle right, Lower right: Courtesy of I. Eibl-Eibesfeldt from I. Eibl-Eibesfeldt,
Ethology: The Biology of Behavior, 2nd ed., New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1975. Upper right: Minden
Pictures/Masterfile. Lower left: Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt
CHAPTER 2THE ROOTS OF NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR 45
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FIGURE 2-9
A tense-mouth display by an adult female rhesus monkey. Ears are flattened, brows are raised,
the gaze is fixed and staring, jaws are close together, and lips are compressed. Teeth are not
prominently exposed, although this animal is highly disposed toward attack. Angry humans
display a similar configuration.
FIGURE 2-10
An adult female rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) displaying a facial threat. Notice that the
teeth are not prominently exposed. Ears are flattened against the head, the brow is raised, the
gaze is fixed and staring, nostrils are flared, and the upper lip is rounded over the teeth.
Used with permission of SRI International
Used with permission of SRI International
46 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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blend of anger in the mouthan open-mouthed anger expressionand fear in the
eye area (Redican, 1982).
Figure 2-12 provides both written and visual descriptions of probable evolution-
ary paths for facial displays of anger in three living primates. It shows evolutionary
dead ends for some expressions and continuity for others. Chevalier-Skolnikoff has
FIGURE 2-11
Facial expressions of Macaca arctoides according to intensity and emotion. Note that on the
anger axis (top row, left to right) as the monkey becomes increasingly angry, the stare intensifies,
the ears are brought forward, the hair is raised over the head and neck, the lips are tightened
and contracted, and the mouth is opened. On the fear axis (left column, top to bottom) as the
animals fear increases, the gaze is averted; the ears are drawn back against the head, where they
do not show; and the lips are retracted horizontally and vertically, baring the teeth.
Reading left to right, and from top to bottom, these are the expressions: (a) Neutral face.
(b) Stare: mild, confident threat. (c) Round-mouthed stare: intense, confident threat.
(d) Slight grimace: slight fear. (e) A mild fearanger blend. (f) Open-mouthed stare:
moderately confident, intense threat. (g) Extreme grimace: extreme fear. (h) Mild bared-teeth
stare: extreme fear blended with anger. (i) Bared-teeth stare: intense fearanger blend.
Source: From Chevalier-Skolnikoff, 1973, p. 27. Drawn by Eric Stoelting.
CHAPTER 2THE ROOTS OF NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR 47
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proposed similar phylogenetic chains for expressions of happiness, such as smiling
and laughter, and sadness with and without crying (Chevalier-Skolnikoff, 1973;
van Hooff, 1972). Like human beings, nonhuman primates may accompany their
emotional facial displays with complementary cues in other body regions: for
example, they may display raised hair or muscle tenseness. Varying degrees of
FIGURE 2-12
A between-species analysis and probable evolutionary paths for facial expressions of anger.
(a) The closed mouth, Type I Angry Face in humans has an equivalent in both macaques and
chimpanzees. In all species, the mouth is closed, the eye gaze is direct, and brows are either
pulled down and together or raised and lowered. (b) This anger display has no equivalent in
human beings. In macaques and chimpanzees, the mouth is partly opened with lips covering
teeth. The macaquesmouth is rounded. The gaze is direct and accompanied by a roar or bark.
(c) This anger display is found only in macaques. The common elements are direct gaze, jaws
slightly to moderately open, accompanied by a roar or bark. Macaques will raise and lower their
brows, and sometimes the lips will not cover the lower teeth. (d) An equivalent of this open
mouth, Type II Angry Face in humans is found in all the nonhuman primates identified here.
Direct gaze; lower eyelids tensed, often producing a squint; brows lowered and pulled together;
jaws moderately open in a rectangular form with teeth showing are all part of the human display.
Words often accompany this display, as do screams and shrieks in other species.
Source: From Chevalier-Skolnikoff, 1973, p. 27. Drawn by Eric Stoelting.
48 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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intensity, as well as blending, can also be produced by nonhuman primates (see
Figure 2-11).
Extensive studies of different species of macaques also demonstrate a wide
variety in the social functions served by particular facial expressions. Thus, even
within these closely related monkey species, the same facial expression can be
used with different overall frequencies and can have different meanings. For
example, there are remarkable species differences with respect to the exact
social meaning of the silent bared-teeth displayor fear grimace (Preuschoft,
1995, p. 201) shown in Figure 2-13. This grimace usually signifies submissive-
ness and appeasement in species marked by rigid status hierarchies. However,
in species in which status differences are weakly expressed, the expression
has converged with other expressionsfor example, the play faceshown in
Figure 2-14 and the open-mouthed bared-teeth display,a more extreme
version of the grimaceto signify genuinely affiliative and reciprocal social inter-
action, such as during greeting, grooming, embracing, or huddling, and also to
reassure a lower-ranking partner. The likely relation to human smiling has long
been noted by primate researchers (van Hooff, 1972). Thus, in species marked
by a reduction of power asymmetry and an increased overlap of interests among
interactants, there has occurred an evolutionary emancipation of silent bared-
teeth display from its originally fearful motivation(Preuschoft, 1995, p. 209).
Such evidence that the same expression can have a diversity of meanings and
functions among macaques should caution researchers of human expressions not
to leap to simplistic conclusions about what human expressions mean based on
the primate evidence.
FIGURE 2-13
A grimace by an adult female rhesus macaque. Teeth receive a prominent frontal exposure in this
and related compound displays.
Used with permission of SRI International
CHAPTER 2THE ROOTS OF NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR 49
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Many of our facial expressions have evolved from noncommunicative beha-
viors such as attacking, moving toward or away from things, self-protective
movements, and movements associated with respiration and vision. Chevalier-
Skolnikoff argues, for instance, that
threat postures of most primates contain elements derived from attack (mouth open and
ready for biting) and locomotion toward (body musculature tense and ready to advance),
while the submissive postures contain elements derived from protective responses
(retraction of lips and ears) and locomotion away from the sender. (1973, p. 30)
Thus, a behavior such as flight from an enemy, which was originally critical
to survival, may eventually become associated with feelings of fear and/or anger. It
is possible, then, that an expression of fear and/or anger may appear even if the
original behavior (fleeing) is unnecessary; for example, a monkey that feels fearful
when approaching a female to copulate. The facial display has, over time, become
associated with a particular feeling state and appears when that feeling state is
aroused. It is likely that those animals that substituted facial expressions of threat
for actual attack and fighting probably had a higher survival rate and, in turn, passed
on this tendency to succeeding generations. Similarly, our greater dependence on
signals received visuallyrather than through smell, for instancemay have
been especially adaptive as our ancestors moved into open areas and increased
in physical size.
FIGURE 2-14
A playful chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) displaying the primate equivalent to the human laugh
and pleasurable smile.
Michael Lyster, London, 1982
50 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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To this point, our focus has been on our closest living relatives: nonhuman pri-
mates. Although these studies may seem most relevant to us, it is worth noting that
nonprimates also show discriminable facial displays. The open-mouth display is
seen in reptiles, and the flattening of the ears in situations evoking threat or star-
tle is seen in most mammals. Some discriminable facial displays in greeting,
grooming, submission, and threat have been identified in fur seals and walruses
(Miller, 1975).
Humans and nonhuman primates need to be able to not only encode emotional
information on the face but also interpret facial cues and expressions, as they both
live in group settings in which others communicate emotional information to them.
Lemurs follow the gaze of other lemurs as they move about in naturalistic settings
(Shepherd & Platt, 2008).
Rhesus monkeys and chimpanzees can discriminate between the facial expres-
sions of conspecifics (Parr & Heintz, 2009; Parr, Waller, & Heintz, 2008). And
great apes (chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans) might be able to use facial expres-
sions to infer behavior. Buttelmann, Call, and Tomasello (2009) had great apes
observe a male human reacting happily to what was inside one container and in a
disgusted fashion to what was inside another container. Afterward, the apes saw
the human eating food. When given the opportunity, the apes were more likely
to choose the container that the human had shown disgust toward, presumably
inferring that there was still food in there (i.e., the human had eaten the food in
the other container). This finding suggests that great apes can infer how a human
had behaved toward two containers of hidden food based on the humans prior
emotion reactions to each.
We also can look at psychological reactions to color as well as entire sequences
of behavior that may have some genetic components and evolutionary origins. For
example, there appear to be parallels in how humans and nonhuman primates
react to seeing the color red on a conspecific in particular settings. Human males
and male rhesus macaques seem to perceive dominance in opponents wearing red
in competitive situations (Hill & Barton, 2005; Khan, Levine, Dobson, & Kralik,
2011), and human males and male chacma baboons appear to perceive greater
sexinessin their respective female counterparts when those females are display-
ing red on their body or, in the case of humans, appearing in a red background or
wearing red clothing (Bielert, Girolami, & Jowell, 1989; Elliot & Niesta, 2008;
Roberts, Owen, & Havlicek, 2010). Similarly, human females and female rhesus
macaques appear to more sexually attracted to males wearing red clothes or dis-
playing reddened faces, respectively (Roberts, Owen, & Havlicek, 2010; Waitt,
Lane, & Head, 2003). The color redonthebodymaysignalsexualmaturation
or receptiveness in male and female humans and nonhuman primates alike, result-
ing in similarities in how each responds to conspecifics displaying that color in
specific settings (e.g., mating).
Many factors affect the way greetings are handled: place, time, relationship
between the greeters, and so forth. With so many sources of potential variation,
it is noteworthy when we find seemingly invariant patterns. Pitcairn and
Eibl-Eibesfeldt (1976) observed the eye behavior of adult human beings, human
infants and children, blind persons, and nonhuman primates in greeting rituals
and found some remarkable similarities. In each case there was a pattern of looking
CHAPTER 2THE ROOTS OF NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR 51
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at the anticipated interaction partner from a distance and looking at them during
the greeting at a closer range and as interaction began; then there was a period of
looking away prior to reestablishing gaze for interaction. They believe this behavior
is a stream of activity which, once started, must continue to the endand that
there is a strong possibility of a genetic or inherited program behind it.
Eibl-Eibesfeldts studies of what he calls basic interaction strategies in several
different cultures led him to conclude that rules related to dominance, bonding
affiliation, and the fear of these are at the root of both verbal and nonverbal
human behavioral displays, whether in greeting, trying to block aggression, getting
the focus of attention, or persuading a partner to give you something. But he
acknowledges that cultural teachings and environmental factors may play an enor-
mous role in making these strategies seem very different from one culture to another.
Still, his observations of children in various cultures led him to state,
We can assume there exists a system of universal rules that structure social interac-
tions, verbal and nonverbal alike. These rules could be rooted in certain panhuman
dispositions that channel the acquisition of norms, and some norms may even be
encoded in reference patterns given to us as phylogenetic adaptations. (1988, p. 114)
Although Eibl-Eibesfeldts view may be perceived as overstated or radically
deterministic, given the evidence he provides for behavioral universality, his obser-
vations do open the door for consideration of entire chains or sequences of behavior
involved in relating to our fellow human beings that may be rooted in our biological
makeup. Cappella (1991), Buck and Powers (2006), and others argue convincingly
that a biological foundation for certain patterns of interactionresponses of both
interactantsin humans also exists.
EVIDENCE FROM MULTICULTURAL STUDIES
Human beings the world over have two basic adaptive problems to solve: how to
stay alive and how to raise their offspring to a reproductive age. Solutions to these
problems might have evolved because they were successful in dealing with these
two problems, and thus are part of our human heritage. Such solutions would be
biological (e.g., the configuration of facial muscles; the ability to run), psychologi-
cal (e.g., the ability to experience emotion states), and social (e.g., the ability to
communicate with others verbally and nonverbally) in nature. To use an overly
simplified example, when confronted by a predator, those humans who could expe-
rience fear, could display that emotion on their face, or could understand the emo-
tional meaning of that expression in others might have been more likely to survive,
assuming those abilities were also associated with the motivational behavior of flee-
ing the situation. To the extent that nonverbal communication aided our survival
and ability to reproduce, it would not be surprising to find cross-cultural similarities
in how humans communicate emotional and social information to one another.
If we observe human beings in different environments with different cultural guide-
lines similarly encoding and/or decoding particular nonverbal behaviors, we will develop
increasing confidence that inherited components of the species may be responsible.
Nonetheless, even though multicultural similarities may be attributable to a common
human inheritance, such observations are not absolute proof of innateness. It only
52 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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means that the cause of similarities across cultures is due to something people have in
common, and thus makes a genetic explanation a possible one to explore.
Some of these cross-cultural similarities concern the perception of discrete emo-
tions (a topic we will deal with more extensively shortly) or socially relevant state
information in people, whereas others concern the enactment of specific behaviors.
In terms of emotion states, Sauter, Eisner, Ekman, and Scott (2010) demonstrated
that negative emotion states, such as fear and anger, have specific vocal qualities
that are decoded similarly by people from different cultures.
Regarding socially relevant information, it appears that both people from indus-
trialized Western cultures and those from a preliterate African tribe recognize the
nonverbal expression of pride (Tracy & Robins, 2008). The combination of nonver-
bal cues that signal pride includes a head tilted backward slightly, postural expansion,
a low-intensity smile with the mouth, and arms akimbo with hands on the hips.
Eibl-Eibesfeldt (1988) suggests we might find entire sequences of behavior
manifesting cross-cultural similarities: for example, coyness, flirting, embarrass-
ment, open-handed greetings, and a lowered posture for communicating submission.
In fact, Schiefenhövel (1997) believes his own work and that of Eibl-Eibesfeldt have
clearly proven the existence of universal facial, proxemic, and to a lesser extent,
gestural behaviors(p. 65). Although others may not share the unequivocality of
Schiefenhövels claim, he reminds us of the extensive body of research ethologists
have accumulated around the globe that speaks to our common behavioral heritage.
At the same time, though, it is important to recognize that much research remains
to be done. For example, there have been claims that, in the area of seeking a mate,
a common courtship danceamong humans and nonhumans exists, and that
cross-cultural similarities can be observed in the nonverbal behaviors used by
humans when flirting with members of the other sex (Birdwhistell, 1970;
Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1971). Although it seems that females use specific nonverbal beha-
viors to start the courtship process with males (looking at a male or standing close
to him), there is a limited cross-cultural understanding of the specific courtship cues
that are used successfully by females to attract males or of the nonverbal behaviors
that males use to court females who have flirted with them (Moore, 2010).
Importantly, even if cross-cultural similarities are found, we should not over-
look how cultural factors might lead to differences in the expression of that non-
verbal behavior. Two examples concern the circumstances that elicit the nonverbal
behavior, and the cultural norms and rules that govern how that nonverbal behav-
ior is managed around others. Next, we detail two behaviors with widespread doc-
umentation in a variety of culturesfindings that urge us to look for the possibility
of phylogenetic origins: (1) the eyebrow flash and (2) facial expressions of emotion.
Eibl-Eibesfeldt (1972) has identified what he calls the eyebrow flash. He has
observed this rapid raising of the eyebrowsmaintained for about one-sixth of a
second before loweringamong Europeans, Balinese, Papuans, Samoans, South
American Indians, Bushmen, and others (see Figure 2-15). Although the eyebrow
flash often can be seen in friendly greeting behavior, it has also been seen when
people are giving approval or agreeing, seeking confirmation, flirting, thanking,
and when beginning and/or emphasizing a statement. The common denominator
seems to be a yesto social contact, requesting or approving such contact. Smiles
and nods sometimes accompany this gesture. The Japanese, however, are reported
CHAPTER 2THE ROOTS OF NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR 53
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to suppress it as an indecent behavior. However, other instances of reported eye-
brow raising seem to indicate disapproval, indignation, or admonishment. These
noeyebrow signals are often accompanied by a stare and/or head lift with lower-
ing of the eyelids signaling a cutting off of contact. Because Eibl-Eibesfeldt observed
eyebrow lifting in some Old World monkeys, he began speculating on the possible
evolutionary development. He reasoned that in both the yesand nodisplays, a
similar purpose was being served: calling attention to someone or letting someone
know for sure that he or she was being looked at. When we display the expression
of surprise, for instance, we raise our eyebrows and call attention to the object of
our surprise. It may be a friendly surprise or an annoyed surprise. The evolutionary
chain hypothesized by Eibl-Eibesfeldt is presented in Figure 2-16.
FIGURE 2-15
Eyebrow flash during friendly greetings filmed by Eibl-Eibesfeldt.
Source: Filmed by I. Eibl-Eibesfeldt from I. Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Ethology: The Biology of Behavior, 2nd ed., New York: Holt,
Rinehart & Winston, 1975.
54 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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Perhaps the most conclusive evidence supporting the universality of facial
expressions is found in the work of Ekman and his colleagues (Fridlund, Ekman,
& Oster, 1987). Photos of 30 faces expressing happiness, fear, surprise, sadness,
anger, and disgust/contempt were presented to people in five diverse, literate
cultures. Faces were selected on the basis of meeting specific criteria for facial
musculature associated with such expressions. There was generally high agree-
ment among the respondents regarding which faces fit which emotions. Other
studies have found results supporting the accuracy of decoding posed facial
expressions of emotion. These studies tested people from 21 different countries
ranging from Kirghizistan to Malaysia and from Ethiopia to Estonia (Boucher &
Carlson, 1980; Ekman, 1972, 1998; Izard, 1971; Niit & Valsiner, 1977; Shimoda,
Argyle, & Ricci-Bitti, 1978).
Because these people were exposed to the mass media and travelers, we
might argue that they learned to recognize aspects of faces in other cultures from
these sources. However, Ekman and Friesens (1971) research with the South Fore
in Papua New Guinea and Heiders (1974) work with the Dani in western New
Guinea show that these isolated, preliterate peopleswho were not exposed to the
mass media and travelersdecoded the posed expressions comparably to the peo-
ple from literate Eastern and Western cultures. In Ekmans work with the South
Fore, stories were told to the subjects who were then asked to select one of three
facial photos that reflected the emotion of the story. Distinguishing fear from sur-
prise was the most difficult discrimination to make. Perhaps, as Ekman says, fearful
events in this culture are often surprising, too. Interestingly, when Ekman obtained
FIGURE 2-16
Eibl-Eibesfeldts hypothesized evolution of eyebrow movements.
CHAPTER 2THE ROOTS OF NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR 55
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photos of expressions made by these New Guineans and asked Americans to judge
them, the Americans accurately decoded all the expressions with high levels
of accuracy, with the exception of fear, which was often judged as surprise and
vice versa.
Physiological reactions associated with facial expressions have also been estab-
lished. Ekman, Levenson, and Friesen (1983) found that greater heart rate accelera-
tion and increased skin conductance occurred when people in the United States
made negative facial expressions displaying fear, disgust, and anger. Levenson,
Ekman, Heider, and Friesen (1992) found the same physiological reactions in the
Minangkabau of Sumatra.
Although Ekmans program of research is perhaps the most complete, other
studies of other cultures support his findings. There does seem to be a universal
association between particular facial muscular patterns and discrete emotions. Note
that this is only a specific element of universality and does not suggest all aspects of
facial affect displays are universal, as Ekman and Friesen (1969) testify,
[W]e believe that, while the facial muscles which move when a particular affect is
aroused are the same across cultures, the evoking stimuli, the linked effects, the
display rules and the behavioral consequences all can vary enormously from one
culture to another.
Do these cultural display rules follow a pattern too? Matsumoto (1991) believes
two important dimensions of culture will help us predict the display rules for facial
expressions in any given culture:
1. Power distance, or the extent to which a culture maintains hierarchical, status,
and/or power differences among its members
2. Individualismcollectivism, or the degree to which a culture encourages indi-
vidual needs, wishes, desires, and values versus group and collective ones
Matsumoto hypothesizes that members of power-distance cultures will display
more emotions in public that preserve status differences. Cultures that stress
individualism, according to this theory, will manifest greater differences in public
emotional displays between ingroups and outgroups than in collective cultures.
Although the evidence seems to point toward universal recognition of certain
emotions from facial expressions, it is important to note that the only facial expres-
sion that received close to or above 90 percent accuracy by those tested in Japan,
Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and the United States was happiness (Ekman, 1973,
1994). The smile, surely the most salient feature of the happy expressions, may
indeed have nearly universal meaning. But even here, we should exercise caution
because studies like those conducted by Ekman ask people to judge pureexpres-
sions and they are often out of context. The social and emotional context of a
smile, and the exact combination of facial muscles used, can add many new and
even contradictory meanings, as we will discuss in Chapter 9. The claim of univer-
sality is not, therefore, that all smiles will always be interpreted as happy but that
the prototypical happy expression, involving movements of certain facial muscles,
will have a common meaning across most cultures.
The possibility of great variation in the meanings attributed to facial expres-
sions is made even clearer when we examine the judgments made of other facial
56 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
expressions of emotion (fear, surprise, anger, disgust/contempt, and sadness). For
these expressions, even the prototypical ones, the accuracy rate across the cultures
Ekman studied is noticeably less than it was for happiness. Perhaps, for these emo-
tional expressions, the biological determinants are weaker or have been overridden
more by cultural norms. Furthermore, Russell (1994) demonstrated that recogni-
tion scores for people from non-Western cultures are significantly lower than
Western respondents for expressions of fear, disgust, and anger. He also notes
the many problems associated with assessing universality in emotion recognition and
cautions that we should not overlook the degree to which cultures do not agree.
As we see in later chapters, there is also evidence that cultures can differ widely
in the overall frequency with which specific gestures or expressions are used, as
well as in the meanings attributed to those cues. So even though some facial dis-
plays of emotion may have a neurologically hardwired component to them, they
are also modified by local norms, values, and customs. As a result, these emotional
displays can be accurately recognized around the world; although some cultures
show more accuracy than others, all cultures are most accurate when judging
expressions made by people from their own culture (Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002).
Thus, again, the debate over universality versus cultural specificity cannot
be viewed as either/or any more than the nature-versus-nurture debate can be. To
illustrate, two cultures might engage in different amounts of interpersonal touch,
but the meanings attributed to various kinds of touchessexual, friendly, domi-
nant, aggressive, and so forthmay be the same in both. Thus, we would see cul-
tural specificity in terms of usage but universality in terms of meaning. Or different
cultures might use the very same hand gesture with the same frequency but may
use it to convey very different messages. In this case there would be universality of
usage but cultural specificity on meaning.
We have ended this chapter by introducing the idea of differences among cul-
tures in emotional displays and recognition. In Chapter 3, we will expand on the
differenceconcept to examine differences among individuals in the ability to
send and understand nonverbal cues.
SUMMARY
In this chapter, we examined five different ways
researchers accumulate data relevant to questions
of genetic and learned behavior. If we had data
from each area for a particular behavior, the
evidence would be strong. Instead, we have frag-
ments and tantalizing possibilities. The evidence
that facial expressions of emotion have an inher-
ited component is, to date, the strongest data we
have on any nonverbal behavior. Facial expres-
sions of emotion seem to manifest themselves in
children deprived of sight and hearing, in infants,
in nonhuman primates, and in literate and pre-
literate cultures around the world. A genetic
component passed on to members of the human
species seems probable for this behavior. The
innate capacity to perceive various kinds of beha-
viors and imitate them also has important impli-
cations for nonverbal study. And even though
little detailed and systematic evidence is available,
the possibility that entire sequences of behavior
may have a link to inheritance is most intriguing.
We take the point of view that neither nature
nor nurture is sufficient to explain the origin of
many nonverbal behaviors. In many instances,
we inherit a neurological program that gives
us the capacity to perform a particular act or
sequence of acts; the fact that a particular behav-
ior occurs at all may be genetically based. Our
CHAPTER 2THE ROOTS OF NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR 57
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environment and cultural training, however, may
be responsible for when the behavior appears, the
frequency of its appearance, and the display rules
accompanying it.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. What do you think it means to say that non-
verbal behavior is universal? State evidence
supporting and not supporting such a claim.
What exceptions can you think of?
2. Darwin thought there were many similarities
between the nonverbal expressions of humans
and those of lower animals. Discuss commu-
nication in the animal world. Do you think
animals send the same messages via nonverbal
behavior that we do?
3. Why, in your opinion, do infants imitate
adultsfacial movements? Do you think
they know what different expressions mean?
Why do babies have such expressive faces
and voices?
4. The eyebrow flash is seen in cultures around
the world. Reflect on your own use of this
gesture. Do you use it? If so, when do you
use it and with what meanings?
58 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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THE ABILITY TO RECEIVE AND
SEND NONVERBAL SIGNALS
[CHAPTER3]
As you look around, you will readily note that some people seem more socially
wise than others. Some people can get along with anybody; some we call savvy,
tactful, shrewd, or poised. In contrast, some people seem insensitive, awkward,
obtuse, or just tuned out. All of these qualities fit into the concept of social compe-
tence. Social competence is not easy to define, but it has long interested researchers,
and social intelligence is considered a basic intellectual capacity distinct from other
cognitive abilities (Rosenthal, Hall, DiMatteo, Rogers, & Archer, 1979; Sternberg,
1984). Emotional intelligence is a related concept involving the ability to judge
emotional messages, to regulate our own emotions, and to use emotions wisely
to guide thought and action (Matthews, Zeidner, & Roberts, 2002; Salovey &
Mayer, 1989). Even though it may seem that social and emotional intelligence are
distinctone cognitive, the other emotionalour success in daily living may
depend on our ability to tie our emotions to our thinking (Damasio, 1994).
We definitely know that skill in nonverbal communication is part of social com-
petence. Some people are comparatively more alert to nonverbal cues and better able
to identify what these cues mean; some people are also more proficient at expressing
their feelings and attitudes nonverbally. Some people try, using nonverbal as well as
verbal cues, to project an image of themselvesfor example, they want to be seen as
cool, reckless, intellectual, sincere, or competentbut they just cannot pull it off
convincingly; their performances seem fake or flawed. Others do an excellent job of
projecting exactly the image they desire. The social competence that comprises such
skill is essential in our daily life, both personal and professional. If we accept the
59
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premise that skill in nonverbal communication is important, and that some people are
more effective at such communication than others, we may legitimately ask how they
became effective, and whether these abilities can be developed in other people.
In this chapter, we focus on the receiving and sending of nonverbal messages,
using the terms skill,ability, and accuracy more or less interchangeably. Although
nonverbal communication skills are often talked about with reference to judging
and expressing emotions, people actually judge and express many other kinds of
nonverbal messages, states, and traits as well. We make such inferences and expres-
sions so often in daily life that we are barely aware of doing it.
A person needs to notice characteristics of others in order to interpret them
correctly. These can include aspects of physical appearance, such as clothing and
hairstyle, as well as nonverbal behaviors. Sometimes the noticing by itself is the
important thing, independent of whatever interpretations might be made (Hall,
Murphy, & Schmid Mast, 2006; Horgan, Schmid Mast, Hall, & Carter, 2004).
For example, we might notice and remember that our friend likes dangly earrings,
that she often wears blue, or that she might be a bit too plump for the sweater you
are thinking of buying her. Sometimes we notice something and make an interpre-
tation right away (She is jumping up and down at the newsshe must be really
excitedor Whoops, that ring tells me hes married). Other times, we may notice
something but not grasp its meaning until later, as in Oh, you didnt get your
promotion. No wonder you were so quiet at dinner.
Social communication skill does not rest only on nonverbal cues, however.
People also need to grasp verbal meaningsliteral, metaphoric, and shades of
innuendoand to integrate verbal and nonverbal cues; sarcasm and joking, for
example, are expressed through combinations of verbal and nonverbal cues. The
ability to connect a name with a face is yet another skill required in daily life, as
is the ability to know whether you have heard a certain voice (see Chapter 11) or
seen a certain face before (Leeland, 2008).
People also need to understand social contexts and roles: what is and is not
expected in a given social situation; how people in particular rolesfor example,
professors and studentsare expected to behave; and what consequences might
ensue from violating othersexpectations (Bernieri, 2001). Kurt Danziger (1976)
has argued that social interaction is impossible without a subtle and unspokenin
other words, nonverbalnegotiation of the respective roles to be played by the
two parties in an interaction. Usually one person lays claim to a particular role or
definition of the relationship, and the other has to go along or else counter with a dif-
ferent role definition. Until the two people tacitly agree on a common understanding,
they cannot successfully interact, because they cannot effectively enact the roles of
friendfriend, teacherstudent, salespersoncustomer, doctorpatient, interrogator
suspect, or motherchild. People generally know how to play these roles very well,
and they do so without having to think about it consciously; furthermore, people
are sensitive to whether roles are being enacted appropriately by others. This subtle
negotiation over roles usually goes unnoticed until one person acts out of roleor
inappropriately to the others unspoken expectations. Then people are likely to become
aware that the interaction has become problematic, although they still may not know
why. Clearly, the ability to read and send the subtle cues required for role negotiation,
and to know when roles are being fulfilled appropriately, is an important social skill.
60 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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Although much research has been done on nonverbal abilities, many questions
remain unanswered. These include the origins of nonverbal abilities; the role that
motivation, and trying hard, plays in accurate judgment and expression; whether
skill in receiving and sending are part of one larger skill or are separate skills; and,
within the receiving and sending modalities, whether there are many distinct sub-
skillssuch as skill in judging emotion, skill in judging personality, and skill in judg-
ing deceptionor whether all these can be subsumed under the general concept of
accuracy. There are also many unresolved methodological issues in this domain
(Hall, Bernieri, & Carney, 2005), some of which we will touch upon in this chapter.
DEVELOPMENT AND IMPROVEMENT OF NONVERBAL SKILLS
Most of our ability to send and receive nonverbal signals is derived from
on-the-job training,the job being the process of daily living. In short, we learn
our nonverbal skills, not always consciously, by imitating and modeling others
and by adapting our responses to the coaching, feedback, and advice of others.
This process starts in infancy with babiesmimicry of adult facial expressions.
Even within the first few days of life, infants can imitate mouth opening and
tongue protrusion; within the first few months, imitation extends to lip protrusion,
finger movements, brow movements, and even different emotional expressions on
the face (see Chapter 2). By 9 months, a mothers facial expressions are not only
reciprocated by her baby but also have a clear influence on the babys affect and play
behavior (Field, 1982; Field, Woodson, Greenberg, & Cohen, 1982; Meltzoff &
Moore, 1983a, 1983b; Termine & Izard, 1988). Experts believe that an innate
repertoire of facial expressions, innate imitative ability, and selective reinforce-
ment by caretakers combine to produce in a child an understanding of the
socially agreed-on meanings of different nonverbal cues, and that these processes
enable people to label emotions in themselves and others (Lewis & Rosenblum,
1978). In Chapters 7 and 9, we discuss nonverbal mimicry further.
That nonverbal and other social skills are strongly rooted in learning seems
apparent enough and provides insight into why individuals differ so much in these
skills. Among many animals, social interaction is also essential to developing appro-
priate social behavior later in life. Harlows famous studies of rhesus macaque mon-
keys showed that monkeys raised in complete isolation for 6 months and then tested
at 2 to 3.5 years of age displayed aggression even to 1-year-old infants, as no self-
respecting socially raised rhesus would(Harlow & Mears, 1978, p. 272). Even
specific communication skills in monkeys have been linked to social experience
early in life. Miller, Caul, and Mirsky (1967) found that rhesus monkeys reared in
isolation were deficient in facial expression and judgment ability. In an experiment,
two monkeys could each avoid an electric shock if one could communicate to the
other through facial cues that the shock was imminent (indicated to the expressor
monkey by a colored light) so that the other monkey could press a bar in time to
cancel the shock for both of them. Monkeys reared in isolation were incapable of
producing the necessary expressions and, when put in the role of receiver monkey,
proved deficient at reading the fearful facial expressions of the other monkey.
Feedback from others as we grow up does not have to mention our behavior
explicitly; it can be a response to our behavior. Feedback, then, may be another
CHAPTER 3THE ABILITY TO RECEIVE AND SEND NONVERBAL SIGNALS 61
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person saying, Well, you dont look happy,or even without making such a state-
ment, treating you like you are an unhappy person. Through feedback we increase
our awareness of ourselves and others. We not only learn what behaviors to enact
but also how they are performed, with whom, when, where, and with what conse-
quences. You can practice nonverbal sending and receiving frequently, but without
regular, accurate feedback, you may not improve your ability. Feedback in the
form of telling participants when their nonverbal judgments are right or wrong is
one of the more successful methods of improving nonverbal abilities (Ambady,
Bernieri, & Richeson, 2000).
Overall, there do appear to be positive effects of training. Studies have incorpo-
rated a variety of approaches, including teaching the meanings of cues and provid-
ing discussion, practice, and feedback as mentioned earlier. Though the evidence is
positive, not much is known about how long such improvements last or about how
they impact social functioning (Beck & Feldman, 1989; Costanzo, 1992; Davitz,
1964; Ekman & Friesen, 1975; Elfenbein, 2006; Grinspan, Hemphill, & Nowicki,
2003). Nevertheless, the potential impact of training should not be overlooked.
For example, men at high risk for physically abusing their children could benefit
from training in emotion recognition, as they appear to have deficits in this area
(Asla, dePaúl, & Pérez-Albéniz, 2011), and physicians could benefit from training
THE TRUTH ABOUT DECEPTION
Hey, I just lied to you!How many times have you heard that right after someone has just lied to your
face? If we ever learn about anothers deceit, it is likely well after the fact. Not knowing that we are being
lied to when we are being lied to, we have little opportunity to detect associations between the nonverbal
cues of the liar and the lie itself.
Moreover, even when we suspect deception, the liar is not likely to admit that we have caught him or
her in a lie, depriving us of the feedback that we need to hone our deception-detecting skills. How often
have you heard the following? Youre right, I am lying to you. What gave me away?For these reasons,
the learning environment for decoders is rather impoverished when deception is involved. Skill at decoding
deception is consequently not all that good.
We might not be aware that our skill at detecting deception is not all that good for the same reasons we
are not good at distinguishing between a lie and the truth. In general, we learn that another person has lied
to us after the fact. We are thus required to search our memory banks for clues about what the liar did or
did not do when he or she was deceiving us. Such recollections could be misleading because what sticks out
in our minds will likely be salient nonverbal cues that do not signal deception per se (e.g., I remember she
got angry when I accused her of pilfering money from the companys petty cash fund). We might also
remember seeing cues that were not actually present during the lie because these cues fit with the faulty ste-
reotypic information we have about the nonverbal behavior of liars (e.g., I recall his eyes became shifty
when I confronted him about flirting with our neighbor). Lastly, when we suspect deception, we might
ignore the feedback from the other person—“Im not lying about this!”—that would lead us to understand
that the person is actually telling the truth to us. Ironically, we cannot be good lie detectors if we do not
understand the nonverbal behaviors associated with telling the truth.
The truth about deception is that, in general, we do not fully appreciate the fact that we are not all that
good at detecting it.
62 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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in effective nonverbal communication strategies for dealing with their patients
(Crane & Crane, 2010).
Individuals from one culture have also been successfully trained to understand
and enact characteristic nonverbal behaviors of people from a different culture
or subculture (Collett, 1971). In Elfenbeins (2006) training study, participants
profited the most when learning to judge emotional expressions from a culture
dissimilar to their own, perhaps due to the relative novelty of the expressions.
Some kinds of everyday experience may also serve as a form of training:
1. Parents, especially mothers, of toddler-age children were shown to be more
accurate in judging nonverbal cues on a standard test than were similar
married people without children (Rosenthal et al., 1979). Though this study
does not prove cause and effect, it fits with other studies that show positive
correlations between experiences requiring communication in the nonverbal
medium and performance on tests of decoding nonverbal cues.
2. One study showed an intriguing connection with training in a different
modality: Training in keyboard music produced improvements in the
ability to decode the meanings of vocal expressions of emotion (Thompson,
Schellenberg, & Husain, 2004).
3. Furthermore, travel outside ones own country (Swenson & Casmir, 1998) and
dance or athletic experience (Pitterman & Nowicki, 2004) are associated with
greater ability to decode nonverbal cues.
These studies suggest that a persons nonverbal skills benefit from more varied
experience in decoding the feelings and reactions of people through nonverbal
cues, as would happen when communicating with people who do not speak
your language, and from reading the cues of teammates and competitors on the
playing field or from spending many hours in the expressive medium of music or
dance.
There have also been efforts to train peoples abilities in sendingnot just
decodingnonverbal cues, especially using the social-skills model developed by
Argyle (1988). According to this model, socially skilled behavior is analogous to
skilled motor behavior, such as driving a car. In both kinds of skills, a person
makes moves, observes their effect including othersreactions to them (i.e., gets
feedback from others about the effect of his or her moves), and takes corrective
action, all with the purpose of obtaining a goal. The different elements of social
behavior are seen as hierarchical. The finer, lower-level elements are automatic
and habitual; the higher levels are more strategic in nature, and therefore, are
under more direct cognitive control. This kind of training involves more active
role-playing and practice than the research described previously. Social-skills train-
ing based on this model has been used to train people of low social competence
in the effective use of nonverbal cues to make friends; it is also aimed at helping
distressed married couples, psychiatric patients, children with learning disabilities,
and professionals who need social skills for their occupations (Argyle, Trower, &
Bryant, 1974; Hargie, 2006).
A major category of behavior emphasized in social-skills training is reinforce-
ment, which involves the provision of encouragement and reward to others in
the course of an interaction. Reinforcers can be verbal and nonverbal. Verbal
CHAPTER 3THE ABILITY TO RECEIVE AND SEND NONVERBAL SIGNALS 63
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reinforcers include acknowledgment, agreement, and praise. Nonverbal reinforcers
include the positive use of smiles, head nods, looking at the other, touching, body
proximity, certain gestures (e.g., thumbs-up), and an encouraging voice quality.
IS IT GOOD TO HAVE MORE ACCURATE KNOWLEDGE
OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION?
Students frequently ask whether attempts to learn about and develop skills in non-
verbal communication might have negative consequences. They wonder whether
we will know too much about others for our own good, and whether those who
have this information might use it to manipulate others for self-serving ends. Or
they worry that being expert in reading nonverbal cues will make a person
unhappy or unpopular, because that person is able to see through otherslies and
insincerity. Though all of these could happen in specific circumstances, there is,
thus far, little overall evidence of these negative consequences. In general, we
believe that increasing peoples knowledge of nonverbal cues is a good thing,
and that both individuals and society benefit when everyonescommunication
skills are better.
Greater knowledge of cues and more developed skills may also make people
less vulnerable to manipulation. But even tactics that work do not work all the
time. A good analogy can be drawn from the study of verbal persuasion. People
have been studying the art of persuasion for over 2,000 years, yet it does not
appear that anyone has become so sophisticated that he or she invariably succeeds
in persuading anyone in any situation. Furthermore, it is the nature of human
adaptation to change behavior when it becomes unproductive. Whenever people
who know more about nonverbal behavior are suspected of using it against others,
we soon see attempts to expose or counteract the attempted influence. It also goes
without saying that each person has the ethical responsibility not to use knowledge
to harm others.
Interestingly, people seem to be less comfortable with the idea of skilled, con-
scious use of nonverbal cues than with the idea of skilled verbal persuasion. People
seem to want to believe that nonverbal communication is always a spontaneous,
and therefore sincere, reflection of feelings or intentions. As long as people believe
all nonverbal cues are spontaneous expressions of feeling, they will be less on
guard against nonverbal manipulation and, therefore, more vulnerable to it. But
nonverbal communication is much more than a spontaneous readout of feelings
(see Chapter 9). People use nonverbal cues for self-presentation and for a variety
of strategic and deliberate, sometimes even dishonest, purposes. A trial lawyer
must act convinced of her clients dubious innocence. A psychotherapist needs to
appear sincerely interested and accepting of a clients plight, whatever it might be.
A manager has to, at times, be able to produce a smile and a cheerful greeting for
his subordinates even when his own mood is less than sunny. And a parent may
use nonverbal communication constantly and deliberately to reinforce and direct a
childs behavior in socially acceptable ways. Each of us has a multitude of roles to
play in life, and a skilled understanding of the nonverbal cues relevant to each role
is important for the smooth functioning of society and can serve to keep us in good
standing with others.
64 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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MEASURING THE ACCURACY OF DECODING
AND ENCODING NONVERBAL CUES
Interest in measuring sending (encoding) and receiving (decoding) accuracy goes
back to the early decades of the 20th century. Over the years, many researchers
have measured accuracy in order to answer a variety of scientific questions. Some-
times the purpose has been to study the encoding and decoding process itself: Can
emotions be recognized from nonverbal cues? What cues do people rely on most
when making their judgments? Sometimes the goal is to compare accuracy in dif-
ferent communication channels or among different emotions: Is it easier to decode
the face than the voice? Which are the hardest messages to send via nonverbal
cues? And sometimes the purpose is to compare the accuracy of individuals and
groups. It is this last line of research that we emphasize in this chapter. Other
chapters in this book take up some of the other questions listed earlier.
Most research on nonverbal communication skill has focused on the sending
and receiving of nonverbal cues reflective of emotions. However, there is much
latitude, both theoretically and in practice, in how nonverbal skill is defined and
measured (Hall & Bernieri, 2001). The following list shows some of the variety
and richness of the information that is sent and received in daily life.
Interpersonal orientation: That person was trying to dominate me,or
He didnt seem very threatening.
Attitudes: I really like you,or I could tell that you didnt like that movie.
Intentions or needs: She wants to leave,or She wants attention.
Physical states: Im in pain,or You look really tired.
Personality: She was the most extraverted person Ive ever met,or He is
so neurotic.
Personal characteristics: You dont look a day over 30,or I bet hes gay.
Intelligence: I have to seem really smart to get this job,or Hes not as
dumb as he looks.
Deception and insincerity: I like this present, I really do,or I thought she
was a big phony.
Appearance and behavior: Remember Jenny? Shes the one who smiles a lot,
or Shes worn the same thing three days in a row!
The following examples will give you a taste of actual research. Bernieri, Gillis,
Davis, and Grahe (1996) have studied rapport, which is defined as how much pos-
itivity, attentiveness, and coordination are experienced by people toward each
other when they interact (Tickle-Degnen & Rosenthal, 1990). Bernieri measured
observersaccuracy in rating the degree of rapport felt by opposite-sex dyads inter-
acting on a videotape by comparing these ratings to the degree of rapport reported
by the people on the tape. Observersaccuracy was better than the guessing level
but was impeded by their reliance on some cues that were not, in fact, indicators
of actual rapport. For example, they thought more smiling was a sign of rapport,
when in fact it was not.
On the opposite side of rapport, adults and children may pick up on nonverbal
cues linked to interracial disharmony. Using 20-second clips of white undergradu-
ates speaking with black or white experimenters, Richeson and Shelton (2005)
CHAPTER 3THE ABILITY TO RECEIVE AND SEND NONVERBAL SIGNALS 65
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found that the speakers prejudice against blacks was detectable by other under-
graduates who rated how positively toned the speakers behavior was. Accuracy in
predicting prejudice was especially high when the rater was black and the video
clip showed a white speaking with a black experimenter. In other words, the black
student raters seemed to be especially able to discern how the more prejudiced
whites spoke to blacks. More disturbingly, childrens racial attitudes might be
informed by observing adultsnonverbal cues of uneasiness in mixed-racial interac-
tions (Castelli, De Dea, & Nesdale, 2008).
A novel kind of accuracy was studied by Carter and Hall (2008), who mea-
sured how well people could notice covariations between characteristics of people
and how they behaved in a group discussion. For example, when observing a
group of people talking about living on campus versus living off campus, did the
observer notice that those who lived on campus talked more than those who did
not? Womens accuracy on this test was higher than mens, and accuracy was
higher for observers who had more extraverted and less neurotic personalities.
Other kinds of interpersonal accuracy include the ability to recognize what
social groups people belong to as well as their sexual orientation. Kraus and
Keltner (2009) noted that observers could distinguish between individuals of upper
and lower socioeconomic status (SES), and that a persons SES might be signaled
by his or her nonverbal cues of disengagement (e.g., doodling, shown more by
upper SES individuals) and engagement (e.g., head nodding, shown more by lower
SES individuals) during interactions. Ambady, Hallahan, and Conner (1999) measured
the accuracy with which people could identifythesexualorientation(gay/lesbianvs.
heterosexual) of people shown speaking for only a few seconds. Accuracy was higher
than would be expected by chance, and the less information provided on which to
base a judgment, the more accurate gay and lesbian observers were relative to hetero-
sexual observers. Rule and Ambady (2008b) further demonstrated that college
students had an accuracy rate higher than guessing when shown gay and straight
mensfacesforonlya20thofasecond.
As one final example, accuracy in judging personality traits can be measured
not only from how people behave but also from their social footprint. This foot-
print can include their tastes in music and recreation, their self-representation on
personal Web sites, their clothing choices, and the manner in which they decorate
and maintain their living or working spaces. Accuracy in judging personality from
such footprint cues has been shown to be surprisingly good, as documented in stud-
ies of music tastes, dress, and living/working spaces, among others (Borkenau, P., &
Liebler, A. (1993a), 1995; Gosling, Ko, Mannarelli, & Morris, 2002; Zweigenhaft,
2008). Social footprint information also seems to help us detect a disorder of person-
ality, narcissism. Observers appear to be aware of the flashy dress and neat appear-
ance of narcissists (Vazire, Naumann, Rentfrow, & Gosling, 2008).
In typical studies of accuracy in judging nonverbal cues, stimuli include video-
tapes, photographs, or audio recordings of people. The stimuli might show all of
the information, as in a regular videotape, or the researcher might carve the non-
verbal cues up into channels, such as silent video, face only, and voice only.
For facial encoding, the people who serve as the stimuli are often asked to
express a series of emotions or attitudes with their faces, or to tell about an emo-
tional experience, while being videotaped. In the slide-viewing paradigm (Buck,
66 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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Miller, & Caul, 1974), the researcher shows expressors (i.e., encoders) a series of
emotionally arousing slides categorized as scenic, sexual, unpleasant, or unusual.
Facial reactions to the slides can then be assessed. Such facial expressions are
much more spontaneous than in the previously described methods, because expres-
sors do not know they are being videotaped while watching the slides (or films, in
some studies; the issue of posed versus spontaneous behavior is discussed later in
this chapter and in Chapter 9).
For vocal encoding, senders may be asked to recite a standard sentence with
emotionally neutral content or to recite the alphabet while expressing different
emotional/attitudinal states. Or they might be asked to describe a past emotional
experience, and thereby reexperience the emotion they had felt at the time. If, for
example, the request is to talk about a sad experience you have had,the tone of
voice used by a sender would reflect how successfully he or she had conveyed his
or her sadness. If the researcher wants to be sure that verbal cues do not provide
the listener with clues as to what message is being conveyed, electronic filtering
methods can be applied to make the words unintelligible so that only nonverbal
qualities, such as loudness and pitch, remain (see Chapter 11).
The accuracy with which the expressors have nonverbally conveyed various
emotions or messages is often defined in terms of whether people who do not
know what the original emotions or messages were can accurately identify them.
Thus, Koerner and Fitzpatrick (2003) had spouses deliberately send emotional mes-
sages to each other and then scored encoding accuracy by showing the videotapes
to a group of naive judges who guessed what emotion was being conveyed. The
proportion of judges whose guesses matched the original affective intention of the
spouses was used as the operational definition of encoding accuracy.
The methods described so far involve presenting a set of nonverbal stimuli to
perceivers. Such stimuli are often called thin slices because they are short excerpts
from the ongoing stream of behavior (Ambady, Bernieri, & Richeson, 2000;
Ambady & Rosenthal, 1992; Carney, Colvin, & Hall, 2007; Lippa & Dietz,
2000). The thin slices used in research can range in length from a video of people
interacting for several minutes down to still facial expressions shown for less than
1 second (Matsumoto et al., 2000).
There are many advantages to having the stimuli standardized in a set that can
be reused with many different perceivers. This is the usual definition of a test.
However, sometimes a researcher wants to investigate nonverbal communication
between individuals who are communicating with each other; for example, they
want to measure the accuracy of communication between spouses (Noller, 1980)
or between subordinates and their bosses (Snodgrass, 1992). Live-interaction
studies like these are not standardized in the way that a test would be. Snodgrass
studied communication accuracy in dyads in the following manner: After a period
of interaction in assigned boss-employee roles, the dyad members made ratings of
their own feelings and feelings about the other person, and then both guessed
what the other persons feelings were using the same rating scales. Communication
accuracy was defined as the correlation between these two sets of ratings, with
accurate communication occurring when one persons pattern of guesses matched
the pattern of the other persons self-ratings. Using this method, it is a challenge to
separate the skills of encoder (expressor) and decoder (receiver) because high
CHAPTER 3THE ABILITY TO RECEIVE AND SEND NONVERBAL SIGNALS 67
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accuracy can result if an encoder sends very clear messages about what he or she
thinks and feels, or if the decoder is highly sensitive to the cues conveyed by the
encoder, or both. However, by showing videotapes of the interactions to a new
group of naive judges, it is possible to disentangle these different sources of accu-
racy (Hall, Rosip, Smith LeBeau, Horgan, & Carter, 2006; Snodgrass, Hecht, &
Ploutz-Snyder, 1998).
A constant problem in this area of research centers on the question of criteria.
It is easy to ask decoders to judge what the sender is feeling or communicating, but
how do you know whether the decoders are right? If the communication is posed,
the criterion can be simply whatever encoders were asked to pose. If the sender
was asked to look happy, a decoder would get a correct answer for saying the per-
son looked happy. Using this system, a decoder could make an error through no
fault of his or her own if the encoder did a poor job of showing the intended emo-
tion. Other criteria have been used, but none is perfect. With the slide-viewing
technique, a decoders answer is scored as correct if he or she correctly identifies
which slide the encoder was viewing when the encoders face was recorded. This
method assumes that encodersfaces show an appropriate response, but
sometimes they do not. Sometimes experts decide on what emotion is being
expressed in a stimulus. Sometimes consensus is used, so a correct answer is
based on what the majority of decoders say. (See Chapter 9 for further discussion
of judgment methods.)
STANDARDIZED TESTS OF DECODING ABILITY
Robert Rosenthal and his associates developed a multichannel test of nonverbal
decoding ability known as the Profile of Nonverbal Sensitivity or PONS test. The
PONS test is a 45-minute video that contains 220 auditory and visual segments to
which viewers are asked to respond. Each segment is a 2-second excerpt from a scene
portrayed by a white American woman. Five scenes portray a positive-dominant
affect or attitude (e.g., admiring a baby); five scenes portray positive-submissive
behavior (e.g., expressing gratitude); five scenes portray negative-dominant
behavior (e.g., criticizing someone for being late); and five scenes portray
negative-submissive behavior (e.g., asking forgiveness). Each scene is presented to
viewers in 11 different cue channels, representing the single or combined channels of
face, body, and two different kinds of content-masked speech (see Chapter 11 for
the description of the methods used to accomplish this). A decoder obtains a score
for particular channels and combinations of channels in addition to a total score.
The test has been administered widely to people of different ages, occupations,
and nationalities.
Figure 3-1 shows three still photos taken from the PONS test. Each item has
two choices: for example, (a) returning faulty item to a store versus (b) ordering
food in a restaurant or (a) talking about ones divorce versus (b) expressing motherly
love. Thus, the PONS test measures the ability to recognize affective or attitudinal
states in a situational context.
In contrast, the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy (DANVA;
Nowicki & Duke, 1994) is based on recognition of pure emotionshappiness,
sadness, fear, and angershown out of context; thus, it taps into a more unitary
68 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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kind of knowledge. The DANVA has several versions, including tests of facial,
vocal, and postural expressions of adult and child expressors. The facial and
postural expressions were generated by asking encoders to pose the different emo-
tions while a photograph was taken, and the vocal cues were generated by asking
encoders to say an ambiguous sentence while conveying the four different emotions.
The DANVA has been used extensively with children and adults.
A recent addition to these standardized tests is the Japanese and Caucasian
Brief Affect Recognition Test (JACBART; Matsumoto et al., 2000). This test
shows still photos of facial expressions of white American and Japanese adults
at extremely short exposuresmere fractions of a second. These photos are sand-
wiched between two neutral expressions of each expressor so that the viewer sees
the sequence of neutral-emotion-neutral in rapid succession. The JACBART inves-
tigates sensitivity to micromomentary expressions,whichwediscussfurtherin
Chapter 9.
In contrast to these tests, in which encoders act out different scenes or emo-
tions, the Interpersonal Perception Task (IPT) emphasizes more spontaneous behav-
ior. Its developers reasoned that in real life, the things we judge about others are
often actual events or relationships (Archer & Akert, 1977; Costanzo & Archer,
1989). For example, a man and woman are interacting with two children: Which
is their own child? Two women discuss a tennis game they have just played: Who
was the winner? A man tells his life story, then he tells it again quite differently:
Which story is true? Figure 3-2 shows some still frames from a preliminary version
of the test. In the final audiovisual version of the test, verbal as well as nonverbal
information is conveyed by the expressors, but the verbal information is ambiguous
enough so that the words alone do not give away the correct answers.
Each item in the IPT has an objectively correct answer; because the scenes
are more ecologically valid than items on most such tests, it is believed the IPT
FIGURE 3-1
Still photos from the PONS test.
Courtesy of Judith A. Hall
CHAPTER 3THE ABILITY TO RECEIVE AND SEND NONVERBAL SIGNALS 69
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measures the subtle and complex skills that people use in everyday life. One final
method based on naturalistic stimuli is called the empathic accuracy paradigm.
Here, a persons ability to mind readwhat another person is thinking and feeling
at particular moments in a conversation is measured by making use of a later
review of the videotape by both parties, during which each party explains their
a
b
FIGURE 3-2
Hows your interpersonal perception? In (a), are the two people a couple married 2 years or
strangers posing together? In (b), which woman is the mother of the children? In (c), is the
woman waking her husband from a nap, watching an arm wrestling match, or playing with
her baby daughter? Answers are given at the end of the chapter.
Dane Archer, Ph.D., Santa Cruz, 1980 Dane Archer, Ph.D., Santa Cruz, 1980
70 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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thoughts/feelings as they occurred. Accuracy is then calculated as how well one
persons guesses about the others thoughts/feelings correspond to what the other
person said (Ickes, 2001, 2003; Ickes, Stinson, Bissonnette, & Garcia, 1990).
PERSONAL FACTORS INFLUENCING THE ACCURACY
OF DECODING NONVERBAL CUES
People can be extremely sensitive to nonverbal cues. In Chapter 1, we showed that
students react to very subtle positive and negative expectancy cues from their tea-
chers. Research shows that first impressions of personality, based on superficial
observation and no actual interaction, agree impressively among observers and
with the targetsown self-descriptions. Thus, people agree on otherssociability or
extraversion after the barest exposure to each other, and those ratings are more
accurate than would be expected by chance (Albright, Kenny, & Malloy, 1988;
Levesque & Kenny, 1993; Marcus & Lehman, 2002).
Similarly, observersratings of only a few seconds, or thin slices, of behavior
can be surprisingly accurate and predictive of other important variables (Ambady,
Bernieri, & Richeson, 2000). The predictive power of thin slices has been demon-
strated in a variety of domains, including judgments of teacher effectiveness, the
affective style of children and their families, personality traits and psychopathol-
ogy, rapport during medical examinations, and intelligence (Ambady & Rosenthal,
1993; Carney, Colvin, & Hall, 2007; Fowler, Lilienfeld, & Patrick, 2009; Murphy,
Hall, & Colvin, 2003; Oveis, Gruber, Keltner, Stamper, & Boyce, 2009;
Roter, Hall, Blanch-Hartigan, Larson, & Frankel, 2011). Interestingly, accurate
predictions can be made of consumerspersonalities based on thin slices of their
c
FIGURE 3-2 (continued)
Dane Archer, Ph.D., Santa Cruz, 1980
CHAPTER 3THE ABILITY TO RECEIVE AND SEND NONVERBAL SIGNALS 71
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avatars (Bélisle & Bodur, 2010). Regarding teacher effectiveness, people who
watch brief clips of silent video of teachersclassroom behavior agree remarkably
on the teachersqualities, and their ratings predict performance evaluations by the
teachersown students and principal (Ambady & Rosenthal, 1993). Clips a minute
long or shorter produce accuracy above chance levels for a variety of personality
traits and intelligence (Carney, Colvin, & Hall, 2007; Murphy, Hall, & Colvin,
2003). In the Carney et al. study, clips of 5 seconds were as good as much longer
clips for judging some characteristics (e.g., intelligence).
However, the accuracy with which thin slices are judged varies greatly from
study to study and depends both on the method used and the construct being
judged. Accuracy may be best when people do not think too much about the judg-
ment process (Ambady, 2011). Accuracy in distinguishing truth from lies is typi-
cally not much above the guessing level (Bond & DePaulo, 2006), whereas
accuracy in judging basic emotions, and also the status difference between two
people, is often very high (Biehl et al., 1997; Schmid Mast & Hall, 2004). Compar-
isons like this must be made with caution, however, because in developing their
tests, investigators have great latitude in determining how easy or difficult the
items are (by, for example, varying how much information is made available
to perceivers). In order to detect differences in test-takersaccuracy levels, test
developers often strive to make their tests neither too easy nor too difficult.
SELF-APPRAISALS AND EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE OF NONVERBAL CUES
Considering the time required to develop, validate, administer, and score nonverbal
tests, you might think it would be cheaper and easier just to ask people to appraise
their own skills. Unfortunately, this does not work. People high in sensitivity
to nonverbal cues are not necessarily those who appraise their own skills highly
(Riggio & Riggio, 2001). Though their accuracy in self-evaluation is above
the guessing level (Hall, Andrzejewski, & Yopchick, 2009), it is not nearly high
enough for self-evaluations to be substituted for tested nonverbal decoding skill.
This fairly low self-awareness of skill is entirely consistent with the view of most
experts that peoples knowledge of nonverbal cues is tacit;thatis,peopleprocess
nonverbal cues largely unconsciously, without much awareness of which cues they
rely on. Indeed, the cues that people think they use when making nonverbal judg-
ments are often not the ones actually relevant to the judgments they are making
(Zuckerman, Koestner, & Driver, 1981).
However, it has been shown that people do have some explicit knowledge of
nonverbal communicationthat is, knowledge they can articulate on a paper-and-
pencil test (Rosip & Hall, 2004), and that deficits in such knowledge may have
important implications for understanding people with subclinical autistic character-
istics (Ingersoll, 2011). The Test of Nonverbal Cue Knowledge (TONCK) (Rosip &
Hall, 2004) measures knowledge with 81 items marked true or false, and the results
are scored based on findings established through published research. These scores
significantly predict accuracy on the PONS and DANVA nonverbal decoding tests
(described earlier), but the correlations are not large enough to permit the TONCK
to be used as a substitute for measuring the actual decoding of cues. However, the
TONCK is a good addition to the instruments available for researchers.
72 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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GENDER
One of the best documented correlates of nonverbal sensitivity is gender. More often
than not, girls and women score higher than boys and men on tests of judging the
meanings of nonverbal cues (Hall, 1984; McClure, 2000). Women also score higher
than men on the TONCK, and they remember peoples appearance and nonverbal
cues better than men do (Hall, Murphy, & Schmid Mast, 2006; Horgan, Schmid
Mast, Hall, & Carter, 2004). The female advantage in decoding the meanings of
nonverbal cues is present from grade school on up. Although the difference is not
greatabout 2 percentage points between average male and female PONS scores,
for exampleit is extremely consistent. Females scored higher than males in 80 per-
cent of 133 different groups given the PONS test, including a variety of non-U.S.
samples (Hall, 1984; Rosenthal et al., 1979). Reviews of research using many other
decoding tests have confirmed that this gender difference exists across ages of parti-
cipants and regardless of whether the encoders are male or female and regardless of
which particular test is used (Hall, 1978). It also holds up, with rare exceptions,
from culture to culture (Dickey & Knower, 1941; Izard, 1971; Merten, 2005;
Rosenthal et al., 1979).
Although these and other studies indicate a superior ability among females to
judge nonverbal cues, there are limits and exceptions to a general female advantage.
Females are especially good at judging facial cues relative to other channels and
when emotion of some sort is being judged (Hall, 1978; Rosenthal & DePaulo,
1979). For the decoding of anger cues, there is some evidence that males may actu-
ally have an advantage when the person being judged is male (Rotter & Rotter,
1988; Wagner, MacDonald, & Manstead, 1986). Researchers have shown that
women do not have an advantage at judging whether another person is lying
(Aamodt & Custer, 2006), or when judging status and dominance (Schmid Mast &
Hall, 2004). And, womens advantage is less consistent when the task is Ickes
empathic accuracy paradigm described earlier, involving the ability to guess another
persons thoughts and feelings at particular moments in a conversation (Ickes, Gesn,
& Graham, 2000). Tasks that possibly show a weaker female advantage are those in
which facial expression plays a less significant role. Indeed, in the empathic accuracy
paradigm, the most important cues appear to be verbal rather than facial (Gesn &
Ickes, 1999; Hall & Schmid Mast, 2007).
Given how widespread the evidence for femalessuperiority on nonverbal judg-
ment tasks is, it is no surprise that interpersonal sensitivity is part of the common
stereotype about women (Briton & Hall, 1995). We think it is likely that females
greater skill as interpersonal decoders has been recognized throughout history and
contributes to the laypersons notion of female intuition.Gender differences in
nonverbal communication skill are discussed further in Chapter 12.
AGE
Age also has been studied in relation to decoding skill. Provocative research indi-
cates that infants only a few months old have some ability to discriminate among
facial and vocal expressions of emotion (Haviland & Lelwica, 1987; Walker-
Andrews, 1997; Walker-Andrews & Lennon, 1991). Of course, it is difficult to
CHAPTER 3THE ABILITY TO RECEIVE AND SEND NONVERBAL SIGNALS 73
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assess how much infants understand the cuesmeanings; discrimination per se does
not demonstrate this kind of understanding. But research did find that 7-month-
olds showed increased attention to faces that matched auditory tones on emotional
quality; for example, they looked more at a joyful face than a sad face when the
associated vocal tones were ascending, fast oscillating, high, and pulsing (Phillips,
Wagner, Fells, & Lynch, 1990). Thus by this age, infants at least know what facial
cues go with what vocal cues.
People generally show a gradually increasing decoding skill from kindergarten
until ages 20 to 30 (Dimitrovsky, 1964; Harrigan, 1984; Markham & Adams,
1992; Nowicki & Duke, 1994; Rosenthal et al., 1979). More focused investiga-
tions have been able to identify the ages when specific skills are gained; for exam-
ple, children 6 and 7 years old could not tell smiles of enjoyment from those
of nonenjoyment, which differ in muscle movements around the eyes, but children
9 and 10 years old could (Gosselin, Perron, Legault, & Campanella, 2002). The
great majority of research into developmental trends has been concerned with judg-
ing emotions from nonverbal cues. Recently, McLarney-Vesotski, Bernieri, and
Rempala (2006) also found improvements across ages 8, 13, and adult for a test
of judging personality traits from short video excerpts.
The trend reverses, however, as a person ages. Numerous studies comparing
young adults to older adults show a decline in accuracy in judging nonverbal cues
with age. For example, women averaging 62 years of age scored significantly lower
on the multichannel PONS test than women averaging 22 years of age (Lieberman,
Rigo, & Campain, 1988), and other researchers have found deficits in adults over
age 65 compared to younger adults (college aged and in their 20s) for face, body,
and voice cues examined separately (Isaacowitz et al., 2007; Ruffman, Henry,
Livingstone, & Phillips, 2008). Finally, Phillips, Scott, Henry, Mowat, and Bell
(2010) found that older individuals with Alzheimers disease had difficulties decod-
ing subtle facial expressions of emotion. Given that people are living longer and are
thus more likely to suffer from particular cognition-related syndromes, such as
Alzheimers, it will be increasingly important for researchers to assess deficits
in nonverbal decoding skill among the elderly and understand the quality-of-life
implications associated with those deficits.
GENERAL COGNITIVE ABILITY
An important question is whether scores on tests of nonverbal sensitivity reflect a
unique ability or a general cognitive skill. If the latter is the case, researchers do
not need to develop sensitivity tests but could administer standard cognitive tests,
such as IQ tests. A recent meta-analysis revealed a small-to-medium positive cor-
relation between general cognitive ability and nonverbal sensitivity (Murphy &
Hall, 2011). However, the relation was small enough to suggest that the two
abilities are far from synonymous. Instead, a persons skill at judging nonverbal
behavior likely depends to some extent upon, but is not defined completely by,
his or her general level of intelligence. In addition, as seen later in this chapter,
a relation does seem to exist between decoding skill and academic performance
in children, though again, not one that is large enough to suggest that the skills
are interchangeable.
74 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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OTHER PERSONAL CORRELATES
Adults who do well on tests of decoding nonverbal cues have been found to exhibit
certain personal and interpersonal characteristics, based on much research and
many published summaries (e.g., Carney & Harrigan, 2003; Funder & Harris,
1986; Hall, Andrzejewski, & Yopchick, 2009; Marsh, Kozak, & Ambady, 2007;
Pickett, Gardner, & Knowles, 2004; Rosenthal et al., 1979). High-scoring adults
are better adjusted, less hostile and manipulating, more interpersonally democratic
and encouraging, more tolerant, more helpful to others, more open to experience,
more conscientious, more extraverted, more in need of social inclusion, less shy,
less anxious, more likely to believe they control what happens to them, more
warm, more empathic, more popular, more reported by others to be interpersonally
sensitive, and better able to judge othersinterpersonal sensitivity. In many ways,
high-scoring adults appear to have a positive interpersonal orientation to other
people. This is interesting because those who are open, positive, agreeable, and
invested in interpersonal relationships are also better at judging peoplespersonal-
ity traits (Fast, Reimer, & Funder, 2008; Letzring, 2008; Vogt & Colvin, 2003).
The relevance of a positive interpersonal orientation to enhanced interpersonal
sensitivity should not apply to personal encounters only, but rather extend to
professional ones as well, such as between a clinician and his or her patients
(Hall, 2011a).
Superior skill in decoding nonverbal cues also has occupational benefits. High-
scoring adults perform better in the workplace, as rated by their supervisors, and
have more satisfying personal relationships. Moreover, nonverbal decoding accu-
racy has recently been found to predict objective outcomes relevant to workplace
success, such as attaining more favorable negotiation outcomes (Elfenbein, Foo,
White, Tan, & Aik, 2007) and performing objectively better as a salesperson
(Byron, Terranova, & Nowicki, 2007).
Children in preschool and/or elementary school who score higher at decoding
face, posture, gesture, or tone of voice have been found to be more popular and
more socially competent, less anxious, less emotionally disturbed, less aggressive,
and less depressed, and they are higher in internal locus of control (e.g., Baum &
Nowicki, 1998; Izard, Fine, Schultz, Mostow, Ackerman, & Youngstrom, 2001;
Lancelot & Nowicki, 1997; McClure & Nowicki, 2001; Nowicki & Carton,
1997; Nowicki & Duke, 1994; Nowicki & Mitchell, 1998). Conversely, difficul-
ties in judging facial expressions may be associated with peer problems among
boys and learning difficulties among girls in elementary school (Goodfellow &
Nowicki, 2009).
A test that consists of black Americansfacial expressions shows an array of
correlates among black test-takers (Nowicki, Glanville, & Demertzis, 1998); for
example, better decoding scores were associated with higher self-esteem and more
internal locus of control in both children and college students. When this test was
given along with a corresponding test showing white adult facial expressions to
samples of black and white college students, the white participants were less accu-
rate than blacks when judging blacksexpressions, but the two groups did not dif-
fer in their accuracy of judging whitesexpressions. Subsequent research on white
and black schoolchildren showed that popularity with peers was related to success
CHAPTER 3THE ABILITY TO RECEIVE AND SEND NONVERBAL SIGNALS 75
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in decoding facial expressions of the studentsown ethnic group, but not those of
the other group (Glanville & Nowicki, 2002).
Children who score higher on nonverbal decoding tests also score higher on
academic achievement (Halberstadt & Hall, 1980; Izard, Fine, Schultz, Mostow,
Ackerman, & Youngstrom, 2001; Nowicki & Duke, 1994). Several studies suggest
that although general cognitive ability may contribute to the ability to understand
nonverbal communication, nonverbal skills may in turn influence academic
achievement, possibly through their impact on teacher-student relationships.
Halberstadt and Hall found that children who scored higher on the PONS test
were perceived by their teachers as smarter, even when the pupilsactual academic
and IQ scores were controlled statistically. Izard and colleagues found that the
ability to understand facial expressions at age 5 predicted teachersratings of
academic competence at age 9, controlling for objectively tested cognitive ability.
It is possible that nonverbally sensitive youngsters create such a good impression
that adults either want to spend more time with them or attribute greater cognitive
ability to them, which may create a positive, self-fulfilling prophecy in which these
children are taught more and encouraged more, leading to actual gains in their
academic achievement. One study has found that decoding skill also seems to have
a direct role in the learning process. Bernieri (1991) found that high school
students who scored higher on the PONS test learned more from a peer in a brief
teaching session than did students who scored lower.
Although it is generally difficult to think of any benefits of a large amount of
television viewing, Feldman, Coats, and Spielman (1996) hypothesized that chil-
dren might actually learn to decode emotional expressions from television, where
such expressions tend to be plentiful as well as exaggerated. And they were right:
Elementary schoolchildren who watched over 14 hours of television weekly were
more accurate in decoding facial expressions of emotion than children who watched
7orfewerhours.
Certain groups tend to have greater nonverbal decoding ability. The top three
groups on the PONS test were actors, students studying nonverbal behavior, and
students studying visual arts. Bucks (1976) research on the interpretation of facial
expressions found that students who were fine arts majors were better decoders
than math and science majors.
Psychologically damaging experiences early in life may also affect accuracy at
decoding nonverbal cues. Hodgins and Belch (2000) found that college students
who had been exposed to parental violence growing up were worse at judging
happy cues than students who had not been, but they did not differ when judging
other emotional expressions. And Pollak and Sinha (2002) found that abused and
maltreated children had a lower threshold for identifying anger in facial expressions.
People suffering from mental illness score considerably lower than norm
groups on the PONS test (Rosenthal et al., 1979). Other studies concur that patients
with schizophrenia, with both chronic and acute forms of the illness, judge facial and
vocal expressions less accurately than unimpaired groups, regardless of whether they
are medicated (Edwards, Jackson, & Pattison, 2002; Mandal, Pandey, & Prasad,
1998; Mueser, Penn, Blanchard, & Bellack, 1997). Though groups with various
kinds of psychological disturbance often have a generalized decoding deficit,
sometimes the deficit is specific; for example, groups with psychopathic personality
76 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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disorders and other documented antisocial behaviors were selectively worse than
control groups when judging fearful facial expressions (Marsh & Blair, 2008), and
depressed patients were selectively worse than a control group when decoding
sad facial expressions (Surguladze et al., 2004).
Examination of error patterns can also be instructive for psychologically
impaired groups. On the PONS test, decrements in decoding ability were found in
boys referred to clinics for various kinds of childhood psychopathology (Russell,
Stokes, Jones, Czogalik, & Rohleder, 1993). Interestingly, boys with problems of
self-control and social incompetence made the majority of their decoding errors
on PONS items requiring a judgment about the dominant-submissive dimension of
behavior, consistent with previous findings that aggressive boys tend to see aggres-
siveness in neutral stimuli (Dodge & Newman, 1981). Similarly, preschool children
who were rated by their teachers as hostile and dependent were biased in their
judgments of their classmatesfacial expressions; they were more likely to say the
expressions were sad or angry and less likely to say they were happy, compared to
children who were not hostile and dependent (Barth & Bastiani, 1997).
A group known for having interpersonal communication difficulties is people
with autism (Philippot, Feldman, & McGee, 1992). Autism is a disorder largely
defined in terms of deficient verbal, and especially nonverbal, communication and
an extreme inability to relate to other human beings. The neurologist Oliver Sacks
has written about Temple Grandin, an autistic academician whose insights greatly
illuminate our understanding of the psychological experience of autism. Grandins
understanding of othersfeelings and intentions comes from immense intellectual
effortas opposed to the unconscious, intuitive process used by nonautistic people.
Commenting on Grandins childhood experiences, Sacks writes:
Something was going on between the other kids, something swift, subtle, constantly
changingan exchange of meanings, a negotiation, a swiftness of understanding so
remarkable that sometimes she wondered if they were all telepathic. She is now aware
of the existence of these social signals. She can infer them, she says, but she herself cannot
perceive them, cannot participate in this magical communication directly.This is why
she often feels excluded, an alien. (1993, p. 116)
Not surprisingly, individuals with autismand a milder, related condition,
Aspergers syndromeconsistently perform worse than normal-functioning people
on tests of decoding facial and vocal expressions (Rutherford, Baron-Cohen, &
Wheelwright, 2002). Deficits in decoding are not restricted to facial and vocal
cues, though; adolescents with Aspergers syndrome, for example, appear to
be slower at recognizing postural cues of boredom, interest, and disagreement
(Doody & Bull, 2011).
SUBSTANCE ABUSE
Substance abuse can damage the brain, resulting in specific cognitive impairments,
including nonverbal decoding skill. For example, alcohol and opiate dependence
have been linked to a reduced ability to decode facial expressions of emotion
(Kornreich et al., 2003). The ability to recognize a change in facial expression
from neutral to affective in nature (e.g., sad, angry) is slower among heavy
CHAPTER 3THE ABILITY TO RECEIVE AND SEND NONVERBAL SIGNALS 77
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cannabis users (Platt, Kamboj, Morgan, & Curran, 2010). Finally, alcoholic
patients score lower than norm groups on the PONS test (Rosenthal et al., 1979).
An intriguing experiment using photographs of six emotions found that when non-
alcoholic participants were given alcohol, their decoding accuracy was impaired,
especially mens ability to identify anger, disgust, and contempt (Borrill, Rosen, &
Summerfield, 1987). Perhaps some of the antisocial behavior of drinkers is linked
to an impairment in their sensitivity to these cues.
CULTURE
The PONS test has been administered to people from over 20 nations (Rosenthal
et al., 1979). People from countries most similar to the United States in language
and culturerelative to modernization, widespread use of communications media,
and so onscored highest. The PONS research, therefore, offers a synthesis of
two opposed positions on the universality of emotional expressions: One states
that these are universally used and recognized, and the other states that nonverbal
communication is as culture specific as verbal language itself. The universalist posi-
tion is supported by the fact that all cultures were able to perform at levels higher
than chance on the PONS test. However, the specificity argument is also supported
by the fact that groups more culturally similar to that of the person shown in the
PONS video were able to extract more accurate meaning from the cues. Elfenbein
and Ambady (2002), in a review of many studies, confirmed that people have a
slight advantage in accuracy when judging encoders who come from their same
culture. (Chapters 2, 9, and 12 offer further discussion of cultural universality
and relativity.)
TASK FACTORS AFFECTING NONVERBAL DECODING ACCURACY
You may think the particular channels testedface, voice, and so onmake a dif-
ference in a persons nonverbal receiving accuracy. Generally, judgments of visual
channels, especially the face, are more accurate than judgments of the voice,
though generalizations like this must be made with caution, because tests of differ-
ent channels may vary in other methodological ways. Several studies show that
emotions and attitudes of liking and disliking are more accurately perceived in the
face than in the voice. Although you may be better able to recognize many emo-
tions and attitudes if you get both audio and visual cues, some messages may be
more effectively communicated in one mode than in another; for example, vocal
cues may be more effective for communicating anxiety and dominance than other
communication channels. And studies show that if you are accurate in recognizing
facial signals, you will also be accurate in perceiving vocal ones (Zuckerman,
Lipets, Koivumaki, & Rosenthal, 1975). Also, accuracy is usually higher if the
expressions are posed rather than spontaneous, but if you do well in decoding one
of these modalities, you will probably do well in the other (Zuckerman, Hall,
DeFrank, & Rosenthal, 1976). It is clear that some emotional and attitudinal states
are more difficult to judge than others. At one extreme, it is very difficult to tell
if someone is lying, and at the other, it is very easy to identify posed facial expres-
sions showing basic emotions such as disgust or joy.
78 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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We might also speculate, as did the PONS researchers, that the amount of time
a receiver was exposed to a nonverbal signal would affect his or her accuracy
in identification. The PONS scenes were presented to people with the exposure
time varied: for example, 1/24 of a second, 3/24 of a second, and so on up to
2 seconds (Rosenthal et al., 1979). Accuracy did increase as exposure time
increased. Yet research on judgments made of exposures varying between
2 seconds and 5 minutes has shown that more information often does not yield
higher accuracy, and when it does, the differences are often not dramatic (Ambady,
Bernieri, & Richeson, 2000; Carney, Colvin, & Hall, 2007).
Peoples moods can influence how they perceive othersnonverbal behavior.
Positive and negative moods produce a bias to see corresponding emotions in
othersfaces (Niedenthal, Halberstadt, Margolin, & Innes-Ker, 2000; Schiffen-
bauer, 1974). A sad mood has been shown to reduce the accuracy of judging
others (Ambady & Gray, 2002), which lends support to the argument that sad
moods promote a deliberative information-processing style that can detract from
accuracy of nonverbal judgments that would otherwise be made in a more auto-
matic, nonanalytic manner. Paradoxically though, a history of major depression is
associated with an enhanced ability to judge othersmental states based on only
their eye expressions (Harkness, Jacobson, Duong, & Sabbagh, 2010). It could
be that the assessment of mental states (e.g., Is the person reflective? Ashamed?
Confident?) benefits from a more deliberative information-processing style when
only one cue (the eyes) is available to decoders compared to judgments of felt
emotion that require decoders to integrate multiple cues, as is the case when inter-
preting facial expressions of emotion.
CHARACTERISTICS OF ACCURATE NONVERBAL SENDERS
When broadly conceived, a definition of nonverbal sending is even more complex
than a definition of nonverbal decoding. In a sense, nonverbal sending is everything
of an interpersonal nature that we do without words. Indeed, it is inevitable that
nonverbal cues will be perceived and interpreted by otherseven if a personsinten-
tion is to appear neutral or unexpressive. Attempts to control nonverbal cues by try-
ing not to express them at all are likely to be interpreted as dullness, withdrawal,
uneasiness, aloofness, or even deceptiveness (DePaulo, 1992). As it is sometimes
said, you cannot not communicate nonverbally.
A persons nonverbal sending is a mixture of spontaneous cues and more
deliberate or intentional ones. When both spontaneous and posed expressions are
obtained from the same people, these two abilities are positively related; that is, if
a persons spontaneous facial expression to pleasant stimuli, such as a television
comedy scene, and unpleasant stimuli, such as a gory accident scene, were easy to
read,that person would also show skill in performing posed expressions.
In daily life, we deliberately convey a host of impressions of ourselves as nice,
smart, youthful, honest, dominant, brave, and so forth through nonverbal chan-
nels. We also use nonverbal communication intentionally as part of our effort to
act socially appropriate: for example, to be respectful to authorities, dignified in a
fancy restaurant, or polite in the face of disappointment. Children attain these
more deliberate self-presentation skills through a long process that combines social
CHAPTER 3THE ABILITY TO RECEIVE AND SEND NONVERBAL SIGNALS 79
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experience with their own development of identity; numerous studies testify to
developmental trends in these skills (DePaulo, 1992; Harrigan, 1984; Nowicki &
Duke, 1994).
According to DePaulo, success at regulating nonverbal behaviors to promote
our public presentation depends on knowledge, skill, practice, experience, confi-
dence, and motivation. The success of nonverbal self-presentation is also limited by
the inherent controllability of different nonverbal channelsthe face, for example, is
believed to be more controllable than voice or bodyas well as individual differ-
ences among people and the intensity of the reality we might wish to mask. For
example, the angrier you are, the harder it will be to act as if everything is fine.
One individual difference that definitely affects self-presentation is spontaneous
expressiveness of the sort discussed in relation to the slide-viewing paradigm; for
example, a person may not realize how much his or her face reflects the content of
a gruesome or romantic scene viewed on television. These differences are observ-
able in infancy and remain stable over the course of development. The spontane-
ously expressive person has many social advantages, as we outline shortly, but
may be handicapped whenever self-presentation calls for application of display
rules or deception. It is suggested, for example, that a highly expressive person
may not make a good poker player (DePaulo, 1992).
Another factor influencing nonverbal self-presentation involves lasting physical
and expressive qualities that bestow a particular demeanor on a person. The man
with thick, bushy eyebrows may look threatening no matter how gentle he actually
is. Research finds that some peoples demeanors tend to make them look honest
or dishonest or pleasant or unpleasant, no matter what they actually feel or do
(Wallbott & Scherer, 1986; Zuckerman, DeFrank, Hall, Larrance, & Rosenthal,
1979). Demeanor can work for or against you, depending on your goals; the socially
skilled person may learn to complement demeanor with other expressive cues to
enhance self-presentation. For example, a person with a babyish face, which others
are likely to perceive as honest-looking (Zebrowitz, 1997), may develop a repertoire
of innocentnonverbal cues to enhance the impression of sincerity.
Most research on nonverbal sending accuracy involves emotions. The person
who is spontaneously emotionally expressive tends to be female and reports less
ability to control his or her emotions (Tucker & Riggio, 1988). It has been suggested
that not allowing free expression can take a toll on health and cognitive functioning
(Berry & Pennebaker, 1993). People who are less expressive experience a higher
level of internal physiological arousal (Buck, 1977; Buck, Miller, & Caul, 1974),
and experiments show short-term effects of emotional suppression with negative
effects on cardiovascular activity, blood pressure, and memory for stimuli presented
during the suppression of emotion (Butler et al., 2003; Richards & Gross, 1999).
Accuracy in expressing emotions deliberately increases through childhood, but
then it levels off. Borod et al. (2004) compared young, middle-aged, and older
adults in their ability to pose several emotions using the face. Clear age effects
were observed, with the greatest deficit occurring between the older adult group
compared to the other two groups.
The seemingly elusive concept of charisma has been operationally defined as
expressiveness, including both spontaneous and more intentional sending. Research
with the Affective Communication Test (ACT)which measures expressiveness
80 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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through self-reported statements such as I show that I like someone by hugging or
touching that person,”“I like being watched by a large group of people,”“I dont
usually have a neutral facial expression,and I can easily express emotion
over the telephone”—documents that the expressive person is socially influential
(Friedman, Prince, Riggio, & DiMatteo, 1980; Friedman & Riggio, 1981; Fried-
man, Riggio, & Casella, 1988). People who scored as more expressive on the ACT
were more likely to have given a lecture, to have been elected to office in a political
organization, to influence othersmoods, and to be perceived as more likable when
meeting new people; in a sample of physicians, they were likely to have more
patients than their counterparts who scored as less expressive. High scorers were
also more likely to have had acting experience, to have had a job in sales, to desire
an occupation that uses social skillssuch as counselor, minister, or diplomat
and to be extraverted, affiliative, and dominant. Comparable findings have
emerged for a longer self-report instrument designed to measure seven dimensions
of social skills (Riggio, 1986).
People can have insight into their spontaneous expressiveness, but research
often finds a weak relationship between participantsself-reports of posed encoding
skill and their ability to act out emotions on purpose (Riggio, Widaman, & Fried-
man, 1985; Zuckerman & Larrance, 1979). Studies that actually measure peoples
nonverbal sending abilities, rather than asking for self-reports, have also produced
a variety of findings. Females manifest greater encoding skill than males in both
posed and spontaneous facial accuracy (Buck, Miller, & Caul, 1974; Friedman,
Riggio, & Segall, 1980; Wagner, Buck, & Winterbotham, 1993; Zaidel & Mehra-
bian, 1969). Possibly contributing to these effects is that females are more success-
ful than males at mimicking facial expressions shown in photographs and on
videotape (Berenbaum & Rotter, 1992). However, evidence is mixed on whether a
gender difference applies for vocal encoding of emotions. Also, the gender-related
difference in sending ability has not been found with children between 4 and 6
years old for spontaneous facial expressions (Buck, 1975). Buck (1977) actually
found preschool boys to be more accurate senders of spontaneous facial cues than
preschool girls, but boysaccuracy declined at ages 4 through 6, perhaps due to
socialization pressure related to the male gender role.
Just as boys appear to be learning the expression norms for their gender, girls
are learning theirs as well. Aside from becoming more facially expressive, girls
learn earlier to use nonverbal cues according to display rules(see Chapter 9)
that dictate what behaviors are socially appropriate. At preschool and elementary
school ages, girls showed less negativity than boys after receiving a disappointing
gift when in the presence of an adult, although control conditions showed they
were no less disappointed than the boys (Cole, 1986; Davis, 1995).
Some personality characteristics also have been associated with accurate sen-
ders of nonverbal information. High self-monitors”—people who are very aware
of how they should be acting in various situations and are willing to do so to
advance their self-interestare better able to send emotional information through
facial and vocal channels (Snyder, 1974). People who are more extraverted are
higher on behavioral measures of expressiveness, whereas those who are more neu-
rotic are lower on such measures (Riggio & Riggio, 2002). Bucks (1975) personal-
ity profile for young children shows many of the same characteristics reviewed
CHAPTER 3THE ABILITY TO RECEIVE AND SEND NONVERBAL SIGNALS 81
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earlier for decoders. Children who are effective senders are extraverted, outgoing,
active, popular, and somewhat bossy and impulsive. Ineffective senders tend to
play alone and are introverted, passive, shy, controlled, and rated as cooperative.
Among adults, highly accurate senders are more dominant and exhibitionistic
(Friedman, Riggio, & Segall, 1980). Better adult senders also make an impression
of greater expressiveness, confidence, and likability; and among males, they use
more fluent speech, more fluent body movements, and more smiles (Riggio &
Friedman, 1986).
For many years, clinicians and researchers have noticed expression deficits in
individuals with schizophrenia. Compared to individuals without the disorder,
these people tend to show reduced facial expressivity, are more likely to show neg-
ative than positive expressions, show less congruence between verbal and facial
messages, and are less accurate in facial and vocal expressions of affect (Mandal,
Pandey, & Prasad, 1998). Individuals with alexithymia, or difficulty in identifying
ones own emotions, also have reduced facial expressiveness when describing posi-
tive or negative events from their past (Wagner & Lee, 2008). Finally, socially anx-
ious children may have more problems expressing their anger on their face than do
inattentivehyperactive children (Walker, Nowicki, Jones, & Heimann, 2011).
Noller (1980; Noller & Gallois, 1986) studied the accuracy of husbandsand
wivesnonverbal communication to each other. Women were better encoders than
men, both in terms of perceiversability to judge the women accurately and in
terms of the womens correct use of the particular cues associated with a given
message (e.g., smiling for a positive message, frowning for a negative message).
Marital adjustment was related to encoding skill among men. Men in happier mar-
riages sent clearer messages through the face. These husbands were also more likely
to offer a correct cue, such as a smile during positive messages, than less happy
husbands, whereas less happy husbands used more eyebrow flashes, a cue not asso-
ciated with a positive message. This research suggests that marital unhappiness
might be partly due to the husbands inadequacy in nonverbal communication.
Unhappy husbands were, in fact, more accurate in decoding the nonverbal behav-
ior of an unknown married woman than that of their own spouse.
PUTTING DECODING AND ENCODING TOGETHER
There are two ways in which decoding and encoding can be considered together. The
first way is to ask whether skilled encoders are also skilled decoders. Interestingly,
this question has not been definitively answered despite considerable research. Some
researchers have found no relationship, or even a negative relationship, between
sending and receiving ability; for example, Lanzetta and Kleck (1970) found that
people who were accurate facial senders were poor receivers and vice versa. Others
find that the two kinds of skill are positively related, leading to the hypothesis of a
general communication ability(Zuckerman, Hall, DeFrank, & Rosenthal, 1976).
A recent meta-analysis revealed a positive association between encoding and decod-
ing accuracy for intentional displays of emotion (Elfenbein & Eisenkraft, 2010).
Nonetheless, there is quite a bit of unexplained variation in the results of
studies examining the relation between encoding and decoding skill. A negative
relation between encoding and decoding skill has been theorized to stem from the
82 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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childhood socialization experience, in particular, the communication environment
within the family (Izard, 1971; Zuckerman, Lipets, Koivumaki, & Rosenthal,
1975). The reasoning goes like this: In a highly expressive family, expression skills
will be well developed, but because emotional cues are so clearly sent by other fam-
ily members, there is no need to fine-tune ones decoding skill, and, therefore,
decoding ability remains relatively undeveloped. However, in unexpressive homes,
a childs expression skills will be poorly developed, but his or her decoding skill is
sharpened, because the child is forced to read minimal or ambiguous cues coming
from other family members. The skill developed from reading family members
who are just barely showing their feelings is hypothesized to generalize, so that a
person from an unexpressive family is predicted to score relatively high on a stan-
dard test of decoding nonverbal cues. Using the Family Expressiveness Question-
naire to measure the communication environment in the family, Halberstadt
(1983, 1986) found support for the predictions stemming from this theory; namely,
that encoding skill would be positively related to greater freedom of emotional
expression in the family, and that decoding skill would be negatively related to
freedom of emotional expression. Consistent with this, a recent study showed that
family expressiveness was negatively related to decoding facial expressions of emo-
tion (Halberstadt, Dennis, & Hess, 2011).
The second way we can consider decoding and encoding together is to
acknowledge that they occur together in the communication process. Although we
have discussed them as separate skills that can be compared, in real interpersonal
interaction, these skills are used together. A person is required to encode and
decode simultaneouslyto act out or display feelings, reactions, intentions, and
attitudes while at the same time noticing the others cues, forming impressions,
interpreting the meanings of expressions, and evaluating feedback from his or her
own behavior. This parallel processingaspect of interpersonal communication
puts many demands on the cognitive system, insofar as it is difficult to allocate
attention or effort to all of these tasks at the same time. The process is made some-
what easier by the fact that a certain amount of nonverbal processing is so well
learned that it is rather automatic, requiring few cognitive resources (i.e., mental
attention). The complex sending and receiving of turn-taking cues in conversation
is a good example: We know how to do this without much conscious thought.
However, when individuals engage in strategic behavioras in deliberately trying
to persuade someoneor when they suffer from social anxiety, considerable expen-
diture of cognitive resources is required that can selectively affect either the encoding
or the decoding process. For instance, socially anxious people tend to be more self-
focused, which can detract them from processing another persons cues (Patterson,
1995). Indeed, more socially anxious people do score lower on nonverbal decoding
tests than less socially anxious people.
ON BEING AN OBSERVER OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
The observation of Expression is by no means easy.
Charles Darwin
As you set out to read the remaining chapters of this book, now seems a good time
to reflect on how you can best use the knowledge contained there. You will learn
CHAPTER 3THE ABILITY TO RECEIVE AND SEND NONVERBAL SIGNALS 83
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quite a lot about the meanings and functions of nonverbal behaviors conveyed in
all cue channels. You will learn that nonverbal cues are major indicators of emo-
tion and play a crucial role in making social impressions and influencing others.
You have just learned that people differ markedly in their skills in judging and
using nonverbal cues. Although certain groups, such as actors and mental patients,
fall at the extremes of skill, a great deal of variation from person to person exists
even in the middle, so-called normal range.
The research indicates that there may not be strong general skills; instead, there
appear to be distinctive skills in different domains. A person may be skilled at
judging emotions in the face but not in the voice; another may have the opposite
pattern. Sarah may be good at identifying nonverbal deceptions, whereas Jim spe-
cializes in recognizing faces, and Martha can tell who stands where in the pecking
order simply from hearing their tone of voice. In short, there are many ways to be
accurate in nonverbal communication. Because so much of a persons time is spent
observing other people, either passively as when observing strangers on a train or
bus, or actively as when in direct interaction with others, one is wise to try to
develop good observational habits. The following list can be useful to observers of
any human transaction. At times some of the following information will contribute
to observer bias, but the information may be necessary at some point to interpret
the observations fully:
1. Find out about the participantsage, sex, position or status, relationship to
each other, previous history, and the like.
2. Find out about the setting of the interactionkind of environment, relation-
ship of the participants to the environment, and expected behavior in that
environment.
3. Find out about the purposes of the interactionwhat are peoples stated as
well as hidden goals, compatibility of goals, and so on.
4. Find out about the social behaviorwho does what to or with whom, form of
the behavior, its intensity, who initiates it, apparent objective of the behavior,
effect on the other interactants, and so on.
5. Find out about the frequency and duration of such behaviorwhen it occurs,
how long it lasts, whether it recurs, frequency of recurrence, and how typical
such behavior is in the situation.
You will also have to decide whether the cues you see are intentional or
unintentional. The term unintentional may itself have a range of meaning; a
behavior may be truly accidental, or it may have significance not recognized by
its enactor. Attributions of intention also may vary depending on the nature of
the behavior in question. Some people believe that spoken words are generally
designed with some goal in mind, but sometimes people say things unintention-
ally or without much advance planning. Certain environments cause us to focus
or attend to the issue of intention more than others. Take the act of being
bumped into by another person: At a crowded football stadium, the question of
the persons intent may not even be considered, but being bumped into while
walking down an uncrowded hallway may be another matter entirely. A full
understanding of the nuances of intentionality poses many difficult barriers
(Stamp & Knapp, 1990).
84 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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THE FALLIBILITY OF HUMAN PERCEPTION
Despite our suggestions concerning how to improve your observational skills, it
is important to stress that human behavior and perception are extraordinarily com-
plex. And even though humans are extraordinarily gifted, relative to other life
forms, in judging the meaning of behavior, we are not infallible creatures. Even
with the best of intentions, it is not unusual for several observers of the same
event to seeseveral different things, nor is it unusual for one observer to see
different things in the same event at different times. Consequently, it would be
wise of us to take the following into account when considering factors that may
contribute to differences in perception.
First, we must recognize that our perceptions are structured by our own
cultural conditioning, education, and personal experiences. Adults teach children
what they think are critical dimensions of others by what they choose to talk
about and make note of. Thus, we form associations that inevitably enter into our
observations. For instance, we may be unable to see what we consider to be contra-
dictory traits or behaviors in others; that is, can you conceive of a person who is
both quiet and active? Wealthy and accessible? Short and romantic? Another
aspect of this internally consistent worldview that may affect our observations con-
cerns preconceptions about what we will see. For example, My observations will
take place in a nursing home. Therefore, the people I will observe will be noncom-
municative, sick, and inactive.Social psychological experimentation has produced
many demonstrations showing that people see what they expect or wish to see,
often without any awareness that they are biasing their observations in this way.
Sometimes we project our own qualities onto the object of our attention; after
all, we think, if these qualities are a part of us, they must be true of others. Some-
times such projection stems less from the desire to flatter ourselves than from a dis-
torted worldview, as in bullies who see others as hostile and threatening. We
sometimes reverse the process when we want to see ourselves as unique: for exam-
ple, I am a rational person, but most people arent.This interaction between our
own needs and desires, or even our temporary emotional states and what we see in
others, sometimes causes us to see only what we want to see or causes us to miss
what may be obvious to others. This process is known as selective perception.
Because of these perceptual biases, observers must check their observations against
the independent reports of others, or they must check the consistency of their own
observations at several different points over an extended period of time.
We must also recognize that our perceptions are influenced by which people
we choose to observe. We probably do not use the same criteria for observing our
friends and parents as we do when observing strangers. We may attribute more
positively perceived behaviors to our friends personality but attribute negatively
perceived behaviors to situational constraints. Familiarity can either assist observa-
tion or create observational noise,but it does affect our perceptions. Further-
more, some phenomena will cause us to zero in on one particular kind of
behavior, observing it very closely but missing simultaneous behaviors occurring
elsewhere. It might be that the behavior receiving the scrutiny is bigger, more
active, or just more interesting. Or it might be that we monitor deviant behavior
more closely than normative or expected behavior. When observing a conversation,
CHAPTER 3THE ABILITY TO RECEIVE AND SEND NONVERBAL SIGNALS 85
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we cannot possibly attend to everything as it happens. Sometimes we will look for,
see, respond to, and interpret a particular set of cues; at other times, the same cues
will go unnoticed or be disregarded. Sometimes observers fall prey to the natural
tendency to follow conversational speaking turns, viewing only the speaker and
missing the behavior of the nonspeakers. And of course, some phenomena are so
complex, so minute, or so frequent that observer fatigue becomes a major concern.
Even if two people observe the same event and attach similar meanings to it,
they may express their observations differently. Others may suspect, then, that the
two observers saw two different things, such as the difference in describing a facial
expression as happiness, joy, delight, pleasure, or amusement. Or it might be the
difference between saying She struck himversus She pushed him,or between
describing a girl as aggressiveand a boy as exhibitionisticwhen they engage
in the same behavior. Hence the language we use to express our perceptions can
be an important variable in judging the accuracy of those perceptions.
Finally, we must be aware of the difference between factual, nonevaluative
descriptions of behavior and the interpretations we give to these descriptions. At
the most basic level, we can say that a successful observer is careful not to confuse
pure description with inferences or interpretations about the behavior. Failure at
the inference stage is aptly illustrated by the familiar story of the scientist who told
his frog to jump, and after a few minutes, the frog jumped. The scientist then
amputated one of the frogs hind legs, and again he told the frog to jump. He told
the frog to jump several more times, and eventually the frog made a feeble attempt
to jump with one hind leg. Then the scientist cut off the other hind leg and repeat-
edly ordered the frog to jump. When no jumping occurred, the scientist recorded
in his log, Upon amputation of one of the frogs hind legs, it begins to lose its
hearing; upon severing both hind legs, the frog becomes totally deaf.This story
illustrates clearly the huge gap that can exist between the factual evidence and the
interpretations that are made.
When we are judging the meanings of the highly complex behaviors that make
up nonverbal communication, it is quite possible to perceive the behaviors accu-
rately but not know, or be wrong about, what they mean. No dictionary of non-
verbal cue meanings exists in which we can simply look up a cue to find its
meaning. Thus, we must constantly be on guard against facile interpretations
about meaning. We must also be cautious about assuming cause-and-effect expla-
nations when, in fact, there could be several different paths of causation between
one variable and another.
SUMMARY
This chapter dealt with nonverbal skills, how to
develop them, and the characteristics of people
who have such skills. In the first half of the
chapter, we reviewed different definitions of
communication skill as well as the major method-
ologies for measuring sending and receiving skills.
We also presented findings on the training of
nonverbal skills, using methods such as feedback,
observation, and role-playing. The second half
of the chapter examined traits and conditions
associated with effectiveness in nonverbal send-
ing (encoding) and receiving (decoding). Most
research in this area has focused on questions
of decoding ability. We reviewed a large number
of different correlates of accuracy in encoding
and decoding nonverbal cues, among which
86 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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one of the most consistent is the tendency for
females to be more accurate communicators as
both encoders and decoders.
We also discussed how accuracy in decoding
may vary with the channel in which the infor-
mation is presented, what characteristics the
encoders have, and how long we heard or saw
the behavior. In spite of these possible varia-
tions, some evidence suggests that if you are
proficient in decoding one channel, you will
be proficient in decoding others, and if you are
proficient in decoding posed expressions, you
will be proficient in decoding spontaneous
ones too. We also presented problems associated
with simultaneously encoding and decoding
nonverbal cues, as we routinely do in conversa-
tion. Evidence is mixed on whether being a good
decoder implies being a good encoder. It does
not necessarily follow that proficiency in one
skill, encoding or decoding, makes a person pro-
ficient in the other, although sometimes this is
the case.
Finally, we talked about what being a good
observer of nonverbal behavior entails. Knowing
the most likely meanings of particular cues and
cue combinations is important, but so are other
factors relating to our attitudes and the context
in which observation is taking place.
Answers to Figure 3-2: (a) strangers posing together, (b) woman on the left, and (c) playing with her
baby daughter.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. How much insight do you think people have
into the cues they use to make judgments
about othersstates and traits?
2. It has been suggested that abilities to send and
receive nonverbal expressions may be
inversely related, in part due to the expression
norms within families. Is your own family
high or low on expressiveness? How might
your familys expression norms have influ-
enced your encoding and decoding skills?
3. The ability to decode other peoples nonver-
bal emotional expressions is only one defini-
tion of nonverbal sensitivity. Think of some
other definitions of nonverbal sensitivity, and
analyze why and when they are useful.
4. Are there any moral or ethical issues related
to the decoding and encoding of nonverbal
cues?
5. Do you think that too much knowledge or
skill in nonverbal communication could be
a bad thing? Argue both for and against this
hypothesis.
6. Sometimes it is said that people enact and
interpret nonverbal cues automatically, that
is, without analytic thought or intention. For
different behaviors and/or skills that you can
point to, what do you think are the relative
contributions of deliberate intention versus
automatic processing?
CHAPTER 3THE ABILITY TO RECEIVE AND SEND NONVERBAL SIGNALS 87
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THE COMMUNICATION
ENVIRONMENT
[PART II ]
The features of the environment within which our interactions take place can exert
a powerful influence on that interaction. Lighting, color schemes, furniture, and
architecture, among other features, affect what we say and even how often we
say it; sometimes we deliberately structure these features in order to obtain certain
responses from others. Part II explores the way we affect and are affected by the
space we have within communication environments, as a preface to discussing, in
Parts III and IV, the behavior of the people who do the communicating.
89
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THE EFFECTS OF THE ENVIRONMENT
ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION
[CHAPTER4]
When people communicate with one another, features of the surrounding environ-
ment always exert an influence on their interaction. What are these environmental
features, and how do they affect us?
First, let us look at a familiar communication environment: the classroom.
Modern architects experiment with different designs, but many classes still take
place in a rectangular room with straight rows of chairs for student seating. A row
of windows along one side of the room may determine the direction students
face, and consequently determine the front of the room. It is not uncommon for
classroom seats to be permanently attached to the floor for ease of maintenance
and tidiness. Classrooms typically have some type of partition, often a desk or
lectern, that serves as a boundary between the teacher and students. It is not hard
for students and teachers to identify problems encountered in environments
designed for learning: poor lighting and acoustics; inadequate climate control;
external construction noises; inoperative or nonexistent electrical outlets; immov-
able seats; gloomy, dull, or distracting color schemes; unpleasant odors; and so
on. Both students and teachers recognize that such problems impede the purpose
for gathering in these rectangular rooms: to increase knowledge through effective
student/teacher communication. The influence of the classroom environment on
student and teacher behavior remained relatively unexplored until Sommer (1967,
1969, 1974) took a closer look. He focused his attention on the influence of
classroom design on student participation.
Every interior betrays the nonverbal skills of its inhabitants. The choice of
materials, the distribution of space, the kind of objects that command attention or
demand to be touchedas compared to those that intimidate or repelhave much
to say about the preferred sensory modalities of their owners.
J. Ruesch and W. Kees
91
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Sommer selected several different types of classrooms for his study. He wanted
to compare the amount of student participation in these classrooms and to analyze
aspects of participatory behavior in each type. He selected seminar rooms with
movable chairs, usually arranged in a horseshoe shape; laboratoriescomplete
with Bunsen burners, bottles, and gas valvesthat represented an extreme in
straight-row seating; a windowless room; and a room with an entire wall of
windows. Among other things, Sommer concluded the following from his studies:
1. Students and teachers who dislike their learning environment will try to avoid
it or change it.
2. In general, the amount of student participation decreases as the number of
students in the class increases. The length of a students participation is also
longer in smaller classes.
3. The content of student participation in large classes is more likely to be
devoted to questions of clarification or requests to repeat an idea rather than
participation focused on the ideas themselves.
4. Participation was most frequent among those students within range of the
instructors eye gaze. In a seminar room, the students sitting directly across
from the instructor participated more. A follow-up study by Adams and Biddle
(1970) found a zone of participation in the center of the room (see Figure 4-1).
This center zone is most likely to occur when the instructor stands in the
middle of the room because it is highly dependent on the instructors visual
contact with the students. If the instructor moved to the side and maintained
visual contact with the students in front of him or her, the zone of participa-
tion would no longer be in the center. But there is more to this story: Koneya
(1973) found that when high-, moderate-, and low-participating students were
FIGURE 4-1
The zone of class participation.
92 PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
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given a chance to select any seat they desired, high participators were most
likely to select seats in the central zone of participation. We can conclude from
this that student participation can be facilitated by visual contact with the
instructor, but that students who are likely to participate tend to position
themselves in seats that are close to the instructor or within the instructors
likely field of gaze. Also note that an instructors gaze can be used to inhibit
communication as well as facilitate it. When students feel they will be
punishedor at least not rewardedfor participating, the zone of participation
is inoperative.
5. What happens when you take moderate- and low-participating students and
deliberately seat them in the zone of participation? Koneya (1973) found that
moderate participators increased their participation, but low participators
remained low. This suggests that where students sit can alter their classroom
participation, but this effect is less likely with low participators. Haber (1982)
found that ethnic, racial, and religious minorities at five colleges tended to
select seating peripheral to the zone of participationeven when they were
a majority at a particular college.
From these studies, we can conclude that classroom seating is not random. Certain
types of people gravitate toward seats that are close to the instructor and/or within
his or her expected pattern of gaze. The instructors gazing patterns create a zone
where students are more likely to verbally participate, unless they are students
who initially sought seating outside of this zone and were moved within it. Even
then, we might find increased participation at some point if a teacher rewards and
supports student participation.
The world of education has changed dramatically since the time of Sommers
research. Students take notes (and, of course, check their Facebook pages) on
laptops, enroll in online classes, participate with other students in discussion
boards,meet with the instructor during his or her virtual office hours, and so on.
For some who are shy in face-to-face settings, an online setting might afford them
more opportunities to participate in a class. For those who need to see the instruc-
tor in person, an online format might be detrimental to the quality of their
education.
Even though many classrooms have changed in form (to more technologically
rich) or location (cyberspace), educators must still be aware of the setting in which
students learn. For example, online classes should be designed to be user-friendly.
A virtual classroom should be designed so as not to make one group, such as
females, feel less welcome because it is more stereotypically masculine in appear-
ance (Cheryan, Meltzoff, & Kim, 2011). Brooks (2011) examined the relationship
between classroom design and student learning in a face-to-face setting. Most of
the participants in the study were first-year, first-semester students taking Principles
of Biological Science with the same instructor. Some of these students were enrolled
in a traditional classroom where they sat at tables facing the front of the classroom,
which had a whiteboard, projection screen, and teachers desk. The other students
were enrolled in an active learning classroom that had round tables (which have
been shown to promote greater collaborative and student-centered learning), laptop
technology, an instructor station, and marker boards along the perimeter of the
CHAPTER 4THE EFFECTS OF THE ENVIRONMENT ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 93
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room. With respect to learning outcomes, the difference between actual grades and
predicted grades based on college entrance exam scores was greater for those in the
active learning classroom than it was for those in the traditional classroom. This
meant that the active learning environment benefited studentsperformance to a
greater extent than did the traditional classroom.
The preceding discussion of the classroom is an example of a specific context
in which spatial relationships, architecture, and objects surrounding the partici-
pants influence the amount of interaction and learning that occur. We will examine
other environmental factors that impinge on human communication behavior
shortly. As a cautionary note, though, you should remember that the environment
is only one element in structuring such behavior. If students, administrators,
teachers, secretaries, and custodians want to run a school or university like a
prison or a dehumanized bureaucracy, changes in the classroom structure will
likely have little impact.
Throughout this chapter, we discuss a number of characteristics of environ-
ments. Let us initiate our exploration by examining the way we perceive our
surroundings, because this can significantly influence the way we feel and the way
we choose to communicate.
PERCEPTIONS OF OUR SURROUNDINGS
The number of places in which we communicate with others is limitless: buses,
homes, apartments, restaurants, offices, parks, hotels, sports arenas, factories,
libraries, movie theaters, museums, and so on. Despite their diversity, we probably
evaluate these environments along similar dimensions. Once we perceive our
environment in a certain way, we may incorporate such perceptions in the develop-
ment of the messages we send. And once these messages have been sent, the
environmental perceptions of the other person have been altered. Thus, we influ-
ence and are influenced by our environments.
How do we see our environments? We believe the following six dimensions are
central to our perceptions and consequently to how we send and receive messages.
PERCEPTIONS OF FORMALITY
One familiar dimension along which we can classify environments is a formal
informal continuum. Reactions may be based on the objects present, the people
present, the functions performed, or any number of other variables. Individual
offices may be more formal than a lounge in the same building; a year-end banquet
takes on more formality than a come as you areparty; an evening at home with
one other couple may be more informal than an evening with 10 other couples.
The greater the formality, the greater the chances that the communication behavior
will be less relaxed and more superficial, hesitant, and stylized.
Of importance, what we expect to see along the formalinformal continuum in
a particular setting matters. We expect to see less formal behavior and dress in
informal settings and more formal behavior and dress in formal settings. Trouble
can arise when these expectations go unmet. Consider the likely reactions of sun-
bathers at a beach to a group of men and women sitting on leather chairs and
94 PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
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discussing corporate strategy in their business suits. In Figure 4-2dubbed the
flip-flop flap”—expectations were violated, leading to negative reactions on the
part of some viewers. The problem was that several members of Northwestern
Universitys championship lacrosse team wore flip-flops when they had their
photo taken with President Bush at the White House (NUs Lacrosse Team Sparks
Flip-Flop-Flap at White House,2005). To some people, flip-flops were disrespectful
footwear in such a lofty setting.
PERCEPTIONS OF WARMTH
Environments that make us feel psychologically warm encourage us to linger, relax,
and feel comfortable. It may be some combination of the color of the drapes or walls,
paneling, carpeting, texture of the furniture, softness of the chairs, soundproofing, and
so on. Even the exterior of an environment can affect our anticipated feelings of com-
fort. Students viewed slides of 34 different medical facilities, and the expected quality
of care and degree of comfort varied with different types of buildings (Devlin, 2008).
Fast-food chains try to exhibit enough warmth in their decor to seem inviting
but enough coldness to encourage rapid turnover. Interestingly, environments that
make us feel psychologically warm may also make us feel physically warmer.
Students were asked to spend 2 hours studying or reading in a room with a neutral
decor, similar to that of a classroom. Then they were asked to read or study in a
room that resembled a walk-in meat cooler. Nearly all the students felt the second
room was cooler, even though the temperature was actually the same in both
FIGURE 4-2
Northwestern Womens Lacrosse Team at White House.
AP Photo/The White House, David Bohrer
CHAPTER 4THE EFFECTS OF THE ENVIRONMENT ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 95
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rooms. Then the meat cooler room was paneled, carpeted, and equipped with sub-
dued lighting and other appointments. Another group of students was asked to
read or study in each room. This time, the redesigned meat-cooler room was
judged to have a higher temperature than the classroom. Again, actual tempera-
tures were the same (Rohles, 1980).
PERCEPTIONS OF PRIVACY
Enclosed environments usually suggest greater privacy, particularly if they accom-
modate only a few people. If the possibility of other peoples entering and/or
overhearing our conversation is slight, even if we are outdoors, there is a greater
feeling of privacy. Personal items such as toilet articles, low or focused lighting,
high-density situations, partitions, noise, and other environmental factors can affect
perceptions of privacy (Buslig, 1999). With greater privacy, we will probably find
close speaking distances and more personal messages designed and adapted for the
specific other person rather than people in general.
PERCEPTIONS OF FAMILIARITY
When we meet a new person or encounter an unfamiliar environment, our responses
typically are cautious, deliberate, and conventional. Unfamiliarenvironmentsare
laden with rituals and norms we do not yet know, so we are hesitant to move too
quickly. We will probably go slowly until we can associate this unfamiliar environment
with one we know. One interpretation for the stereotyped structure of fast-food restau-
rants is that they allow us, in our mobile society, to readily find a familiar and predict-
able place that will guarantee minimal demands for active contact with strangers. In
unfamiliar environments, the most likely initial topic of conversation will be the envi-
ronment itself: Have you ever been here before? What is it like? Who comes here?
PERCEPTIONS OF CONSTRAINT
Part of our total reaction to our environment is based on our perception of
whether, and how easily, we can leave it. Some students feel confined in their own
homes during the school Christmas break. But consider the differences between this
2-week constraint and a permanent live-at-home arrangement. The intensity of
these perceptions of constraint is closely related to the space available to us as well
as the privacy of this space during the time we are in the environment. Some envir-
onments seem to be only temporarily confining, such as an automobile during a
long trip. Perceptions of confinement in other environments, such as prisons, space-
craft, or nursing homes, will likely seem more enduring.
PERCEPTIONS OF DISTANCE
Sometimes our responses within a given environment are influenced by how close
or far away we must conduct our communication with another. This may reflect
actual physical distancean office on a different floor, a house in another part of
the cityor it may reflect psychological distance, with barriers clearly separating
people who are fairly close physically. You may be seated close to someone and
96 PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
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still not perceive it as a close environment: for example, interlocking chairs facing
the same direction in an airport. When the setting forces us into close quarters
with other people not well known to us, such as elevators or crowded buses, we
try to increase distance psychologically to reduce threatening feelings of intimacy.
We can do this through less eye contact, body tenseness and immobility, cold
silence, nervous laughter, jokes about the intimacy, and public conversation
directed at all present.
The perceptions just described represent only some of the dimensions along
which we can view communication settings. Generally, more intimate communi-
cation is associated with informal, unconstrained, private, familiar, close, and
warm environments. In everyday situations, however, these dimensions combine in
complex ways. The mixture of intimate and nonintimate factors can be seen in an
elevator if it is perceived as close, familiar, and temporarily confining but also pub-
lic, formal, and cold.
REACTING TO ENVIRONMENTS
Once these perceptions are made, how do they affect our reactions? Sometimes the
impact of the environment will be slight, but it has the potential to play a signifi-
cant role in affecting our behavior. In a study of 98 child-care classes for 3- and
4-year-olds, Maxwell (2007) concluded that perceptions of the physical environ-
ment were related to measures of the childrens cognitive and social competency,
especially for the 3-year-olds.
Mehrabian (1976) argued that we react emotionally to our surroundings.
These emotional reactions can be accounted for in terms of (1) how aroused the
environment makes us feel, (2) how pleasurable we feel, and (3) how dominant we
feel. Arousal refers to how active, stimulated, frenzied, or alert we are. Pleasure
refers to feelings of joy, satisfaction, and happiness. Dominance refers to feelings
of being in control, important, and free to act in a variety of ways.
Novel, surprising, and complex environments probably produce higher
arousal. Those people less able to screen out unwanted information from the envi-
ronment inevitably have to respond to more stimuli and, in turn, become more
aroused. Although we all probably respond as screeners and nonscreeners on occa-
sion, some people tend to respond habitually as one or the other. Nonscreeners are
less selective in what they respond to in any environment. They see, hear, smell,
and otherwise sense more stimuli. Screeners, in contrast, are selective in what they
respond to. They impose a hierarchy of importance on various components in a
complex situation. Nonscreeners not only become more aroused than screeners in
novel, changing, and sudden situations, they also remain aroused longereven
after leaving the arousing environment. That is why nonscreeners are most
attracted to environments that are both arousing and pleasurable.
Introversionextraversion is another personality variable that influences how
people respond to arousing environments. Research by Geen (1984) has shown
that introverts require less stimulation to reach their optimal level of physiological
arousal than do extraverts. This means that introverts could become overly aroused
in an environment that is comfortable for extraverts. Knowing this, introverts and
extraverts may choose some environments over others, avoiding those that will
CHAPTER 4THE EFFECTS OF THE ENVIRONMENT ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 97
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not be arousing enough or too arousing for them. In line with this, Campbell and
Hawley (1982) found that introverted students preferred quiet, socially isolated
settings when studying, whereas extraverts sought noisier settings where they
could socialize with others.
Ambient aroma is an environmental factor that influences how people behave
in an environment. Research by Baron (1997) has shown that pleasant odors
increase our willingness to help members of the same sex. The increased helpful-
ness seems to be due to the pleasant odors making people feel better. It also
appears that clean scents increase peoples willingness to be charitable (Liljenquist,
Zhong, & Galinsky, 2010). Importantly, these environmental effects are likely to
be nonconscious in nature, suggesting that our behavior could, at times, be under
the influence of the odors wafting through or lingering in the spaces we pass
through.
PERCEPTIONS OF TIME
Time is also a part of the communicative environment. At first, it may seem strange
to include something as seemingly intangible as time in the same environmental
package as chairs, walls, noise, or even weather conditions. However, the human
brain may be wired to encode time and place information after an event that is
tragic or of momentous importance. Do you have a vivid memory of the events
directly surrounding 9/11? What were you doing before, during, and after that
news broke? Chances are that that information is burned into your memory, some-
thing psychologists refer to as a flashbulb memory. In the United States, people
treat time as something tangible, a commodity that can be divided up, saved,
spent, and made. Furthermore, we often project temporal qualities onto objects
within our environment: for example, a chair that looks like it has been there for-
ever or an elevator that never seems to be on time.
Time is important to us. It governs when we eat and sleep, it often determines
how much we get paid at work, and it sets limits on how much material students
can learn in a given class period. Time plays a key role in social interaction as
well. It influences our perceptions of people: for example, responsible people are
on time, boring people talk too long, or a good romantic partner gives us some
time to ourselves (Leonard, 1978; Werner & Baxter, 1994). A course in time man-
agement is a staple for anyone expecting to climb the corporate ladder in U.S.
organizations. Time plays such an important role in our lives that we often carry
the date and time around with us on our wrist or on our cell phones. Most cars
have clocks, and some of them even have devices for computing the time it will take
to drive from one location to another. We are very much aware of the stress time can
create in our lives. We think of a vacation as a retreat to a place where time matters
less. Ironically, vacations are usually thought of as a set period of time.
Time is perceived very differently in other cultures (Hall, 1959). These varying
orientations to time are often a central factor in misunderstandings among mem-
bers of different cultures. Psychology professor Robert Levine gives this account of
his teaching experience in Brazil:
As I left home for my first day of class, I asked someone the time. It was 9:05 a.m.,
which allowed me time to relax and look around the campus before my 10 oclock
98 PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
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lecture. After what I judged to be half an hour, I glanced at the clock I was passing.
It said 10:20! In a panic, I broke for the classroom, followed by gentle calls of
Hola, professorand Tudo bem, professor?from unhurried students, many of
whom, I later realized, were my own. I arrived breathless to find an empty room.
Frantically, I asked a passerby the time. Nine forty-fivewas the answer. No,
that couldntbe.Iaskedsomeoneelse.Nine fifty-five.Another said: Exactly
9:43.The clock in a nearby office read 3:15. I had learned my first lesson about
Brazilians: Their timepieces are consistently inaccurate. And nobody minds. My class
was scheduled from 10 until noon. Many students came late, some very late
none seemed terribly concerned about lateness. The real surprise came at noon
only a few students left immediately. Others drifted out during the next fifteen
minutes, and some continued asking me questions long after that. (Levine & Wolff,
1985, p. 30)
Biologically, our bodies seem to be programmed so that internal clocksregulate
our physical, emotional, and intellectual functioning as well as our sense of time
(Luce, 1971; Meissner & Wittmann, 2011). However, we can experience distor-
tions in the perception of time; some of which are influenced by events, whereas
others by personality variables.
We all know that a watched pot doesnt boiland that the waiting room at a
physicians office is a fitting description. Examples of events that seem to slow time
downthat is, the perceived duration is longer than the actual durationinclude
scary ones (e.g., skydiving for novices) and seeing angry or fearful faces compared
to neutral faces (Campbell & Bryant, 2007; Effron, Niedenthal, Gil, & Droit-Volet,
2006; Gil & Droit-Volet, 2011). On the other hand, highly exciting events can
make time fly (Campbell & Bryant, 2007).
Individual differences in the perception of time have been linked to neurolog-
ical and psychological differences (Westfall, Jasper, & Zelmanova, 2010;
Zimbardo & Boyd, 1999). Regarding the latter, Zimbardo and Boyd (1999)
believe in individual differences in peoples attitudes toward time, something
which can influence their decisions and judgments. These include the past-
negative type (you view your past negatively, and your past still upsets you), the
past-positive type (you have a nostalgic view of your past), the present-hedonistic
type (you think more about partaking in pleasures of the present than conse-
quences in the future), the present-fatalistic type (you feel stuck in the present
and unable to change your future), and the future-focused type (you are focused
on accomplishing goals important to your future). These orientations may repre-
sent a long-term style or may be subject to change; for example, a present-
hedonistic type, who lives for the momentat one point in his or her life,
might later adapt to a future-focused style that involves evaluating todays
momentsin terms of the long-range picture (Gonzalez & Zimbardo, 1985).
We devote the remainder of this chapter to the characteristics of environ-
ments that form the bases of the perceptions just outlined: perceptions of our
surroundings and perceptions of time. Each environment has three major
components:
1. The natural environmentgeography, location, atmospheric conditions
2. The presence or absence of other people
3. The architectural design and movable objects
CHAPTER 4THE EFFECTS OF THE ENVIRONMENT ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 99
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THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT
Some of us live in densely populated urban areas, some in smaller towns, some in
suburban areas on the outskirts of these cities and towns, and others in rural
areas. Within these broad areas, we find other environmental features that affect
the nature of human interaction and health: for example, apartment complexes,
neighborhoods, high-rise buildings, and urban settings with forested areas. The
places we live, play, and work are bound to have an impact on our behavior.
The number of people we communicate with can influence our interaction style,
but perhaps more important is the number of different people for whom we have
to adapt our messages. Some environments are very homogeneous and provide
inhabitants with fewer experiences and fewer examples of diverse styles, behavior,
and values. The pace of life and the time devoted to developing social and personal
relationships may also vary as a function of where we live. In slums or ghettos in
urban areas, we often find a social climate that encourages or fosters unconven-
tional and deviant behavior or at least tolerates it. Thus, slum areas show a high
incidence of juvenile delinquency, prostitution, alcohol and drug addiction, physical
and mental disability, and crimes of violence (Krupat, 1985).
The natural environment that surrounds us on a day-to-day basis also comes
with a host of weather-related phenomena. For instance, behavioral scientists have
been interested in the effects of barometric pressure: High or rising barometric
pressure has been associated with feelings of good health; low or falling barometric
pressure is more likely to be linked to feelings of pain or depression. Optimum stu-
dent behavior and performance have been observed when the barometer was high
or rising and on cool days with little wind and precipitation. Increase in positive
air ions also seems to increase peoples irritability and tension.
The changing seasons seem to have an impact on our behavior and mental
health, too. Even in areas of the United States with minimal seasonal variations
in temperature, national routines associated with changing seasons are still
followed: for example, taking summer vacations and starting school in the fall.
Some of the ways in which our behavior varies with the seasons include the
following:
1. Suicide rates and admissions to public mental hospitals rise dramatically in the
spring and peak in the summer.
2. College students tend to break up with their dating partners at the beginnings
and endings of semesters (May/June, August/September, or December/
January).
3. During the summer, people tend to see their friends more often.
4. During the summer, crimes of assault and rape increase.
5. From July to November, people tend to report less happiness but more activity
and less boredom.
6. U.S. females born during the fall are more likely to have symptoms related to
eating disorders than females born during the other seasons (Javaras, Austin, &
Field, 2011).
7. Although seasonal affective disorder (we describe this later in the chapter) can
be triggered in spring, the onset is more likely to be during late fall and early
winter.
100 PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
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BROKEN WINDOWS.BROKEN RULES?
Imagine entering an urban neighborhood with
few people around. You pass by numerous build-
ings that have been vandalized (e.g., broken
windows, graffiti on the outside walls, and litter
all around). Do these represent clues to the ex-
isting norms of conduct operating in that envi-
ronment? Do you think that the buildings are not
monitored and that getting caught for littering or
damaging property further is very unlikely?
Wilson and Kelling (1982) and others
(Kelling & Coles, 1996) proposed the so-called
broken windows theory to account for how the
appearance and upkeep of an environment is
one signal of the social norms there, the extent
to which the setting is monitored, and whether
criminal behavior occurs in that area. These,
in turn, are relevant to the occurrence and
prevention of some criminal activity.
In principle, one way to prevent petty
criminal activity is to repair damaged property
and not let trash accumulate because this
lets would-be vandals know that the area is
monitored and that vandalism will be detected
and dealt with. On the other hand, the presence
of litter, broken windows, and other signs of
vandalism might not deter some individuals from engaging in similar petty or even serious criminal activity in
the neighborhood. Furthermore, additional criminal activity can lead to a further deterioration of the appear-
ance of the area, only making matters worse. For example, law-abiding citizens may decide to flee the area.
The broken windows theory has received some empirical support, but it has also been criticized. Survey
research has shown that aspects of the theory have utility in explaining residentsconcern about neighbor-
hood safety as well as studentsperceptions of social disorder in their school (Pitner, Yu, & Brown, 2012;
Plank, Bradshaw, & Young, 2009). Experimental work has revealed that littering, trespassing, and stealing
are greater when there are signs that people are violating other rules; littering was greater, for example, when
participants saw graffiti on a wall marked with a no graffiti signthan when that same wall had no graffiti
on it (Keizer, Lindenberg, & Steg, 2008). However, the research of Cialdini, Kallgren, and Reno (1991)
suggests that it might be important for us to see another person behave in a way that is consistent with the
existing norms in the environment. They found that participants were more likely to litter in a messy garage
than a clean garage when they had first seen another person litter in that garage. Stated differently, the litterer
brought the norm (Its okay to litter) to participantsawareness when they were in the messy garage.
As a theory, broken windows has been criticized on a number of fronts. First and foremost, it cannot
explain the causes of serious criminal activity. Of course, most of the people who live in blighted urban
areas do not turn to a life of violent crime. Moreover, a criminal may be little concerned with the upkeep
of a street; a burglar, for instance, may case a luxury home in an exclusive neighborhood and ignore a
modest home in a run-down neighborhood because the potential payoffs are greater with the former.
Jeff Dalton/Photos.com
CHAPTER 4THE EFFECTS OF THE ENVIRONMENT ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 101
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We recognize that seasons come and go gradually along with the weather that
typically accompanies themfalling leaves eventually give way to falling snow.
However, within seasons, the weather can change suddenly and drastically: for
example, a sunny spring day can be followed by violent storm activity that night,
with tornadoes touching down and ripping apart neighborhoods. Natural disasters
can inflict great psychological damage on those who have experienced them, some-
times leading to post-traumatic stress disorder (Simpson, Weissbecker, & Sephton,
2011).
Temperature and the way it affects human responses is the climatic factor that
has received the most scientific attentionspecifically, the extent to which hot tem-
peratures increase aggressive motivation and aggressive behavior.
Lengthy periods of extreme heat are often associated with discomfort,
irritability, reduced work output, and unfavorable evaluations of strangers. In
one study, hot temperatures increased aggressive horn-honking for drivers
without air-conditioning (Kenrick & MacFarlane, 1986). Vrij, van der Steen,
and Koppelaar (1994) studied the reactions of police officers to a simulated
burglary in which the temperature varied from comfortably cool to hot. When
the temperature was hot, officers reported more aggressive and threatening
impressions of the suspect and were more likely to draw their weapon. As
Anderson (2001) noted, uncomfortably warm temperatures seem to increase the
likelihood that ambiguous social interactions will be viewed as aggressive.
A simple question such as Is it really necessary that I do that?may be taken
as an aggressive challenge to personal authority that demands some form of
retaliation.
An analysis of riots in India over a 22-year period found that most took place
during the months when the temperature was between 80 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit
(Berke & Wilson, 1951). Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil
Disorders (1968) on riots in the United States said that hot summer nights added to
an already explosive situation that eventually resulted in widespread rioting in
ghetto areas: In most instances, the temperature during the day on which the vio-
lence erupted was quite high(p. 71; also see Goranson & King, 1970). An analysis
of 102 riots in the United States between 1967 and 1971 concluded that the most
likely temperature-riot sequence was one in which the temperature rose to between
81 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit and remained within that range for about 7 days
preceding the riot. Rotton and Cohn (2003) conducted two studies, each covering
38 years or more, and found annual temperatures associated with various forms of
criminal behavior such as assaults, rapes, robberies, burglaries, and larcenybut not
murder.
Without any way to relieve the effects of high temperatures, criminal behavior
is likely to decrease when extremely high temperatures persist. Very high tempera-
tures lead people to seek ways to relieve their discomfort rather than engage in
criminal activity. Riots were less likely to occur as temperatures climbed above
90 degrees Fahrenheit (Baron & Ransberger, 1978; Carlsmith & Anderson, 1979).
As Figure 4-3 indicates, assaults in climate-controlled settings tend to increase
when temperatures are extremely high but decrease in outdoor situations without
climate controls (Rotton & Cohn, 2004).
102 PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
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You might be wondering why heat would lead to more aggression. According
to Leonard Berkowitz (1989), the likely culprit is negative feelings. In short, high
temperatures can produce negative feelings, and it is these feelings that can trigger
anger and hostile thoughts and behaviors in people. This occurs because such
thoughts and behaviors are linked to it in an associated network in memory. This
model implies that other environmental stressors that arouse negative feelings in
peopleexcessive noise, traffic jams, pollution, and so onmight also lead to
more aggression under the right circumstance.
Obviously, the relationship between temperature, negative affect, and aggres-
sion is not simple. Probably a number of factors interact with the temperature to
increase the chance of aggression: prior provocation; the presence of aggressive
models; and negative affect experienced from sources other than temperature, such
as poverty and unemployment, perceived ability to leave the environment, and the
availability of sources to relieve any adverse effects of temperature. A thorough
review of the literature, however, concludes the following:
Clearly, hot temperatures produce increases in aggressive motives and tendencies.
Hotter regions of the world yield more aggression; this is especially apparent when
analyses are done within countries. Hotter years, quarters of years, seasons,
months, and days all yield relatively more aggressive behaviors such as murders,
rapes, assaults, riots, and wife beatings, among others. Finally, those concomitant
temperature-aggression studies done in the field also yielded clear evidence that
uncomfortably hot temperatures produce increases in aggressive motives and beha-
viors. (Anderson, 1989, p. 93)
Note, however, that sometimes unpleasant environmental factors, such as heat
or noise, can increase attraction for others. In such cases, the aversive stimulus may
Temperature
15
1.5
2.0
2.5
Aggravated Assault (Mean)
3.0
3.5
4.0
4.5
25 35 45 55 65 75 85 95 100>
Outside
Inside
FIGURE 4-3
Aggravated assault as a function of temperature and climate control.
CHAPTER 4THE EFFECTS OF THE ENVIRONMENT ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 103
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function as something both people have in common (Kenrick & Johnson, 1979;
Schneider, Lesko, & Garrett, 1980). The extent to which heat and other environ-
mental variables increase or decrease attraction to others depends on how these
interact with many other factors, such as interactantspersonalities and the pres-
ence or absence of simultaneously occurring rewarding stimuli.
The effects of the moon and sunspots on human behavior have also been stud-
ied scientifically. Psychiatrist Arnold Lieber (1978) reasoned that human beings,
like the earth, are subject to gravitational forces created by different positions of
the moon. (Human beings, like the planet itself, are about 80 percent water and
20 percent solids.) He plotted the number of murders in relation to the position of
the moon and concluded a strong relationship between the two. But considerable
skepticism exists regarding Liebers theory and similar work because research of
this type shows how two things vary together, not that a particular moon position
actually causes certain behaviors. Several other factors likely are interacting and
affecting the two. Two separate analyses of over 37 studies that purportedly linked
moon positions and the frequency of psychiatric hospital admissions, suicides,
homicides, traffic accidents, and changes in the stock market concluded that a spu-
rious relationship exists between moon phases and these behaviors (Campbell &
Beets, 1978; Rotton & Kelly, 1985). Furthermore, Schafer, Varano, Jarvis, and
Cancino (2010) did not find a relationship between lunar cycles and reported
criminal conduct in a more recent study on this topic.
Aside from the influence of high temperatures on aggressive tendencies, we do
not have a lot of reliable and valid information on how the natural environment
affects our communication behavior. It seems reasonable to believe that various
aspects of the natural environment will have an influence, but the exact nature
and degree of this influence is still unknown. Most people seem to believe the
weather has less impact on their own behavior than it does on othersbehavior,
that it has less impact on behavior than it does on emotional states, and that it
does not have more impact on negative states than on positive ones (Jorgenson,
1981). Kraut and Johnston (1979) found that people walking on the sidewalk
smiled more when the weather was sunny and pleasant than when it was rainy
and overcast. This difference was much less significant than the effect of being
with others; people smiled much more when in an interaction than when alone.
Thus, compared to more social factors, climate and other environmental variables
may have weak influences on our behavior.
OTHER PEOPLE IN THE ENVIRONMENT
Chapter 5 examines the reactions of people to overpopulated environments. For
now, we point out that people can be perceived as part of the environment and do
have an effect on the behavior of others. These people may be perceived as active
or passive participants, depending on the degree to which they are perceived as
involved in conversations, either speaking or listening. In many situations, these
people are seen as active, especially if they are able to overhear what is being said.
In some situations, we grant another person or persons the dubious status of
nonperson and behave accordingly. This may occur in high-density situations, but
104 PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
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it is also common with just one other person. Cab drivers, janitors, and children
achieve nonperson status with regularity. The presence of nonpersons, of course,
allows the uninhibited flow of interaction because as far as the active participants
are concerned, they themselves are the only human interactants present. Parents
sometimes talk to others about personal aspects of their child while the child is
playing nearby. For interactants, the child is perceived as not there.Any relevant
verbal or nonverbal responses on the part of the nonperson that are picked up by
interactants immediately strip the person of the nonperson role.
Research shows that the home team was usually the winner in sporting events
(Jamieson, 2010). One study found this to be true 53 percent of the time in profes-
sional baseball, 58 percent in professional football, 60 percent in college football,
67 percent in professional basketball, and 64 percent in professional hockey. Possi-
ble reasons are the home teams familiarity with the home field or the visiting
teams travel fatigue. However, an important factor contributing to the home
teams victories seems to be the spectators, who provide psychological support
that improves performance. In contrast, unfriendly home crowds may increase
performance errors (Schwartz & Barsky, 1977; Thirer & Rampey, 1979). Some
analyses of home team performances before supportive fans have suggested a
tendency for the home team to choke in championship games, but some studies
have not shown this to be true for baseball or basketball (Schlenker, Phillips,
Boniecki, & Schlenker, 1995).
The ways in which groups influence individual performance are too numerous
and too large a topic to discuss here. Two examples illustrate the subtlety of some
of these effects:
1. In one of social psychologys first experiments, boys wound line on fishing
reels faster when others were present performing the same activity, even
though there was no competition and no emphasis on speed. Many studies
have since found this social facilitation effect whereby performanceon simple
and well-learned tasks, at leastis enhanced by the mere presence of others.
2. If people feel others are working with them on a joint task, they often slack off
without realizing it. This social loafing is strongest when people feel their own
contributions cannot be tallied or evaluated (Harkins & Szymanski, 1987).
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN AND MOVABLE OBJECTS
Hall (1966) labeled the architecture and objects in our environment as either fixed
feature space or semifixed feature space. Fixed feature space refers to space orga-
nized by unmoving boundaries, such as in rooms of houses; semifixed feature
space refers to the arrangement of movable objects, such as tables or chairs. Both
can have a strong impact on our communication behavior.
At one time in U.S. history, banks were deliberately designed to project an
image of strength and security. The design frequently featured large marble pillars,
an abundance of metal bars and doors, uncovered floors, and bare walls. This style
generally projected a cold, impersonal image to visitors, yet oddly enough, it also
gave customers some measure of comfort because in such a place their money
CHAPTER 4THE EFFECTS OF THE ENVIRONMENT ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 105
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would likely be safe. Later, bankers perceived the need to change their environ-
ment, to create a friendly, warm, homey place where people would enjoy sitting
down and discussing their financial needs and problems. Bank interiors began to
change. Carpeting was added, wood replaced metal, cushioned chairs were added,
and potted plants and art were brought in for additional warmth. This is only one
example of the recognition that many times, the interior in which interaction
occurs can significantly influence the nature of the interaction. Some churches
have tried to make their environments more inviting by having greeters, Power-
Point presentations, musicians who sing and play guitars, and the like. Nightclub
owners and restaurateurs have long been aware that dim lighting and sound-
absorbing surfacessuch as carpets, drapes, and padded ceilingsprovide greater
intimacy and cause patrons to linger longer than they would in an interior with
high illumination and no soundproofing. And lastly, attention has been paid to
how gamblers are influenced by the design and decor features of casinos (Finlay,
Marmurek, Kanetkar, & Londerville, 2010).
The earliest studies to focus on the influence of interior decoration on human
responses were conducted by Maslow and Mintz (1956) and Mintz (1956). They
selected three rooms for study: One was an uglyroom, designed to give the
impression of a janitors storeroom in disheveled condition; one was a beautiful
room, complete with attractive appointments that included carpeting and drapes;
and one was an averagerooma professors office. People sitting in these
rooms were asked to rate a series of negative print photographs (to control for
color, shading, etc.) of faces. The experimenters tried to keep all factorstime of
day, odor, noise, type of seating, and experimenterconstant from room to room,
so results could be attributed to the type of room.
Results showed that people in the beautiful room gave significantly higher rat-
ings on energyand well-beingto the faces than did participants in the ugly
room. Experimenters and subjects alike engaged in various escape behaviors to
avoid the ugly room, which was variously described as producing monotony,
fatigue, headache, discontent, sleep, irritability, and hostility. The beautiful
room, however, produced feelings of pleasure, comfort, enjoyment, importance,
energy, and a desire to continue the activity. In this instance, we have a well-controlled
study that offers some evidence of the impact of visual-aesthetic surroundings on the
nature of human interaction. Similar studies found that students do better on tests,
rate teachers higher, and solve problems more effectively in beautiful rooms than in
ugly ones (Campbell, 1979; Wollin & Montagre, 1981).
Because at least one study did not find mood or evaluations of others to
change with drastic changes in appointments and decor (Kasmar, Griffin, &
Mauritzen, 1968), we are reminded that the impact of the environment is only
one source of influence on our perceptions. Sometimes it is a powerful force, but
sometimes the close relationship between the two parties, an understanding of or
tolerance for clutter, positive behavior on the part of the other person, and other
factors offset any negative effects emanating from an ugly environment.
Sometimes we get very definite person- or couple-related messages from home
environments (see Figure 4-4). The designation of places in the home for certain
activities and not for others, the symbolism attached to various objects in the
home, and ways of decorating the home may tell us a lot about the nature of a
106 PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
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couples relationship (Altman, Brown, Staples, & Werner, 1992). Sometimes the
way a home is decorated reveals whether the inhabitants decorated their home for
themselves, for others, for conformity, for comfort, and so on (Sandalla, 1987). It
is easier to judge aspects of other peoples personalities when they feel that their
home decor expresses their personality (Hâta, 2004).
Lohmann, Arriaga, and Goodfriend (2003) were able to use decorative objects
in a home to determine the closeness of the inhabitantsrelationship. They asked
couples who were either married or living together in a romantic relationship to
identify objects in their homes they most wanted visitors to notice and to specify
their favorite objects. Each object was also identified as either individually acquired
or jointly acquired. Couples completed questionnaires that measured their relation-
ship commitment and closeness. The couples who had greater commitment and
closer relationships were also couples who had a higher proportion of jointly
acquired objects that they wanted visitors to notice and more jointly acquired
favorite objects.
Researchers have explored individual differences in how people decorate their
actual (e.g., bedrooms, offices) or virtual worlds (Graham, Sandy, & Gosling,
2011). For example, Gosling (2008), Gosling, Ko, Mannarelli, and Morris (2002),
and Gosling, Gaddis, and Vazire (2008) were interested in whether personality
characteristics could accurately be predicted from a persons office or bedroom.
FIGURE 4-4
Environmental Perception Test: (a) Describe the people who live here. (b) Tell why you would or
would not like to meet the people who live here. (c) How much communication takes place here?
(d) What topics are most likely discussed? (e) Which dimensions listed on pp. 9497 influenced
your perceptions the most? (f) Compare your answers with others.
Eric Vega/iStockphoto.com
CHAPTER 4THE EFFECTS OF THE ENVIRONMENT ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 107
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Observers who experienced various offices and bedrooms firsthand indicated the
extent to which the environment they saw reflected the persons extraversion,
agreeableness, emotional stability, openness to experience, and conscientiousness.
The personality profile of the people who worked in the offices and slept in the
bedrooms was obtained from their own responses to personality measures. These
types of environments seem to have enough signals associated with conscientious-
ness and openness to experience to enable observers to effectively judge inhabitants
with those characteristics (e.g., a variety of reading material was linked to openness
to experiences; being neat was linked to conscientiousness), but observers were not
as successful in judging other personality characteristics. We may not always be
accurate in judging another persons personality characteristics from the way they
construct their environment, but that does not stop us from making such judg-
ments. People who judged the personality of characters in a story when the quality
of their housekeeping was varied judged the housekeepers with a dirty environment
as less agreeable, less conscientious, less intelligent, and less feminine but more
open and more neurotic than the clean housekeepers. Whether the housekeeper
was male or female did not affect the judgments (Harris & Sachau, 2005).
The way people decorate their rooms may also forecast future behavior. In one
study, researchers took photographs of 83 first-year studentsrooms. When the
photographs of the rooms of students who had dropped out of school a year and
a half later were analyzed, it was noted that the dropouts had more decorations
reflecting high school and home and fewer related to the university community.
Dropouts also seemed to have fewer ways to protect their privacy; their favorite
way to combat unwanted noise was to override it with more noise of their own
(Vinsel, Brown, Altman, & Foss, 1980).
COLOR
Researchers have been investigating how color affects our behavior, from how food
tastes to us to how attractive we find others (Elliot & Niesta, 2008; Harrar,
Piqueras-Fiszman, & Spence, 2011). First off, people believe that colors can affect
behavior. In fact, some believe prisoner mischiefwill vary as a function of the
colors surrounding prisoners. For example, the walls of the San Diego city jail
were at one time reportedly painted pink, baby blue, and peach on the assumption
that pastel colors would have a calming effect on the inmates. In Salem, Oregon, the
cell bars of Oregons correctional institution were painted soft greens, blues, and
buffs; some cell doors were painted bright yellow, orange, green, and blue. In addi-
tion, the superintendent of the institution said the color schemes would be continu-
ally changed to keep it an exciting place to work and live in.Initial studies of
people exposed to environments painted Baker-Miller pink found decreasing heart
rates, pulse, and respiration. Subsequent studies in adult and juvenile correctional
facilities, psychiatric hospitals, and controlled laboratory studies with undergraduate
students supported the belief that this pink color aided in suppressing violent
and aggressive behaviors (Pelligrini & Schauss, 1980; Schauss, 1985). In 2005, the
sheriff of Mason County, Texas, painted the bars and walls of his five-inmate jail
pink and issued pink sheets, pink slippers, and pink jumpsuits to his prisoners. He
claims it has led to a 70 percent decrease in repeated offenses (Phinney, 2006).
108 PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
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But not all experiences with pink have been so positive. The county jail in San
Jose, California, reportedly painted two holding cells shocking pink in the belief
that prisoner hostility would be reduced. Prisoners seemed less hostile for about
15 minutes, but soon the hostility reached a peak; after 3 hours, some prisoners
were tearing the paint off the wall. This result is consistent with the research of
Smith, Bell, and Fusco (1986) who found pink to be arousing rather than weaken-
ing. In fact, any color that is highly saturated and bright is likely to be more arousing
and will garner more attention than paler colors (Camgoz, Yener, & Guvenc, 2004;
Garber & Hyatt, 2003). When prisoners are allowed to paint their cells with colors
they choose, it may have an aggression-reducing effect, but the effect may have
more to do with the prisoners control over the choice of colors than the colors
themselves. Nevertheless, the preceding reports show how various institutions have
tried, with mixed results, to apply the findings from color research to affect the
nature of human interaction in certain environments.
Colors are also believed to influence student learning. Colors that will facili-
tate, or at least not impede, learning are always a concern during classroom
construction. In Munich, Germany, a group of researchers studied the impact of
colors on mental growth and social relations (Blue Is Beautiful,1973). Children
tested in rooms they thought were beautiful scored about 12 points higher on an
IQ test than those tested in rooms they thought were ugly. Blue, yellow, yellow-
green, and orange were considered beautiful; white, black, and brown were consid-
ered ugly. The beautifully colored rooms also seemed to stimulate alertness and
creativity. In the orange room, psychologists found that positive social reactions,
such as friendly words and smiles, increased 53 percent, whereas negative reac-
tions, such as irritability and hostility, decreased 12 percent.
Balls (1965) summary of the color research prior to 1965 found what others
have found since then: that people associate serenity and calm with the colors blue
and green, and that red and orange are perceived to be arousing and stimulating.
The research of Wexner (1954) and Murray and Deabler (1957) are representative
of this tradition. Wexner (see Table 4-1) presented 8 colors and 11 mood-tones to
94 research participants. The results show that a single color is significantly related
to some mood-tones; for others, two or more colors may be associated.
It is difficult to interpret this research. First, research participants were asked to
judge colors outside of any context, even though the colors we respond to in daily
life are perceived within a particular context. Separating color from the objects and
forms that give it shape, the surrounding colors, and other contextual features may
elicit some learned stereotypes about the relationship of mood and color, but each
stereotype may or may not be relevant when given a context. Pink may be your
favorite color, but you may still dislike pink hair.
Hines (1996) found that residents of four American cities believed red meant
danger, warmth, love, strength, and safety, but when these same people were
asked to think about red in terms of products, they said red meant Coca-Cola.
Because the color red is associated with male dominance and testosterone levels in
some nonhuman animals, Hill and Barton (2005) wondered whether the wearing
of red would play a role in winning sporting contests. In the 2004 Olympic
games, contestants in four combat sportstae kwon do, boxing, Greco-Roman
wrestling, and freestyle wrestlingwere randomly assigned red or blue outfits. In
CHAPTER 4THE EFFECTS OF THE ENVIRONMENT ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 109
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all four competitions, the contestants wearing red won significantly more fights.
The researchers later compared the performances of five soccer teams that varied
the color of their uniforms and found that they won significantly more games
when wearing red. The researchers caution, however, that wearing red may only
be a favorable factor in winning when the combatants are reasonably matched in
skill: Wearing red will not overcome a lack of talent.
Studies suggest that the color red enhances the attractiveness of members of the
other sex. In one experiment, young men saw the same black-and-white photo of a
woman in one of two conditions: in either a red background or a white back-
ground. Mens ratings of the womans attractiveness were higher when she was
featured in the red as opposed to the white background (Elliot & Niesta, 2008).
Similarly, Elliot et al. (2010) found that young women thought a man was more
attractive when he was shown on a red background compared to a white one.
A series of studies on the color of uniforms worn by football and hockey
players pinpointed the complex ways in which colors may affect behavior. Frank
and Gilovich (1988) began by demonstrating that students rated black uniforms as
connoting meanness and aggression more than other colors. Then they examined
statistics from actual professional games and found that football and hockey
teams wearing black uniforms were penalized more than teams wearing other col-
ors. And when a team changed its color to black from some other color, it began
TABLE 4-1 COLORS ASSOCIATED WITH MOODS
Mood-Tone Color Number of Times Chosen
Exciting/stimulating Red 61
Secure/comfortable Blue 41
Distressed/disturbed/upset Orange 34
Tender/soothing Blue 41
Protective/defending Red 21
Brown 17
Blue 15
Black 15
Purple 14
Despondent/dejected/unhappy/melancholy Black 25
Brown 25
Calm/peaceful/serene Blue 38
Green 31
Dignified/stately Purple 45
Cheerful/jovial/joyful Yellow 40
Defiant/contrary/hostile Red 23
Orange 21
Black 18
Powerful/strong/masterful Black 48
110 PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
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getting more penalties! The researchers then asked whether the effect was caused
by the players themselvesmaybe they acted meaner and rougher wearing black
or by the stereotyped perceptions of referees. The researchers made experimental
films in which they varied the uniforms of players engaging in identical moves and
then showed these to subjects acting as referees. These referees did find more
instances of penalizable behavior among those suited in black, even though there
actually were no differences. However, when the researchers put black uniforms
on students, they found evidence that wearing a black uniform produced more
aggressive behavior in the wearer. More recent evidence, however, has called this
effect into question. Caldwell and Burger (2011) did not find that hockey teams
showed more aggression when the players wore a black or red jersey as opposed
to their normal jersey color.
We cannot make any conclusive judgments about the impact of color on
human interaction from the research to date, but common sense tells us that colors
in our environment will affect the way we respond: We simply do not know how
or how much. What we do know is that research in this area needs to continue,
and that its scope must be broadened to new interaction environments. For
instance, because many people visit Web sites on a daily basis, researchers should
examine how color in those Web sites impacts visitors both within and across vari-
ous cultures (e.g., Cyr, Head, & Larios, 2010).
SOUND
Types of sounds and their intensity also seem to affect our interpersonal behavior,
task performance, and health. We may have very different reactions to the drone of
several peoples voices, the overpowering sound of a nearby jackhammer, or the
soothing or stimulating sounds of music.
Most of us are aware of how music can affect our moods, and our selection
of music may be designed to match or even change our moods. Depressing music
can add to the intensity of an already gloomy mood; uplifting music can enhance
a joyful feeling. Beginning with ideas like this, Honeycutt and Eidenmuller (2001)
conducted an exploratory study in which they asked couples to work at resolving
a source of conflict in their relationship while background music was playing.
Some couples experienced music rated as more positive and uplifting, and others
experienced negative or dreary music. The results of this study suggest not only
that the type of music can affect the verbal and nonverbal behavior of interactants
(e.g., agitating music was more likely to be linked to arguments), but the intensity
of the music can affect the intensity of the interaction. In a related study, uplifting
or annoying music was played for users of a university gym. Following their work-
out, they were asked to sign up for a helping task that did not involve much effort
or commitment or one that did. People exposed to both types of music signed up
for the easy task, but significantly more people who heard the uplifting music signed
up to help with the more difficult task (North, Tarrant, & Hargreaves, 2004).
Music can also affect consumer behavior. At one British restaurant, diners were
exposed to classical, pop, or no music for 18 evenings. When dining to the sound
of classical music, people spent significantly more money (North, Shilcock, &
Hargreaves, 2003). Obviously, different types of music are suitable for different
CHAPTER 4THE EFFECTS OF THE ENVIRONMENT ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 111
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environments, and the music that is most effective for an environment is music that
is compatible with perceptions of other environmental features. Scientists at the
University of Leicester in England displayed four French and four German wines in
a local supermarket. The wines from the two countries were similar in price, sweet-
ness, and dryness. For 2 weeks, a tape deck on a nearby shelf alternated each day
with either French accordion music or German beer-hall music. Placement of the
wine on the shelves was alternated midway through the experiment. Researchers
found that sales were clearly linked to the type of music being played: When French
music was played, French wines outsold German wines, but when German music
was played, German wines outsold French wines. Only about 7 percent of those
purchasing wines were willing to acknowledge that the music may have influenced
their decision (North, Hargreaves, & McKendrick, 1997).
Concern has grown in the general public about the effects of music on young
peoples behavior. It is important to remember that the music most young adults
listen to (pop, rap, rock and roll, soul, country, etc.) contains lyrics. Teasing apart
the impact of the music versus the lyrics is thus important. For example, it appears
that violent lyrics contribute to aggressive thoughts and behaviors, prosocial lyrics
contribute to helping behavior, and romantic lyrics contribute to romance-related
behavior (namely, womens initial openness to having phone contact with a male)
(Anderson, Carnagey, & Eubanks, 2003; Greitemeyer, 2009; Guéguen, Jacob, &
Lamy, 2010; Mast & McAndrew, 2011). More important, it seems that it is the
lyrics and not the music per se that is responsible for the increase in aggressive
thoughts and behavior. Here again, we see that co-occurring verbal cues must be
taken into consideration when we evaluate the impact of a nonverbal cue, such as
music. We also should not ignore individual differences. Huang and Shih (2011),
for instance, found that music negatively affected workersconcentration when the
music was either strongly liked or disliked by the worker.
Szalma and Hancocks (2011) review revealed that noise negatively impacts
performance, including communication that is both oral and written. However,
they noted that the extent to which noise hurts performance depends on a variety
of factors, including noise intensity, whether the noise is intermittent or continuous,
the type of noise, noise duration, and the type of task being done under noisy
conditions. As an illustration of some of these factors, Glass and Singer (1973) con-
ducted a series of studies on the impact of noise on performance. People were
asked to perform a variety of tasks varying in complexity while noises were manip-
ulated by the experimenters. Noise levels were varied: Some noise followed a
predictable pattern, and some did not. Various noise sources were tested, including
typewriters, machinery, and people speaking a foreign language. Although noise
alone did not seem to have a substantial effect on performance, deterioration was
observed when noise interacted with other factors; for instance, performance
decreased when the workload was high and the noise was uncontrollable and
unpredictable. Other factors that determine whether noise is a problem or a
pleasure include the type of noisefor example, music versus people talkingthe
volume, the length of time it lasts, and whether the listener is accustomed to it or
not. Obviously, some individuals are more influenced by noise than others. Noise-
sensitive incoming college students perceived more noise than other students, and
these perceptions increased after 7 months into the school year. The noise-sensitive
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students also received lower grades, felt less secure in their social interactions, and
had a greater desire for privacy than did their peers who were less sensitive to noise
(Weinstein, 1978).
Noise can also have short- and long-term effects on learning, motivation,
behavior, and health. Ryan and Mendel (2010) reported that the noise levels sur-
rounding physical education settings (e.g., gymnasium) are too high for Florida
school-aged children (elementary, middle, and high school), which could be detri-
mental to their learning. Jahncke, Hygge, Halin, Green, and Dimberg (2011)
noted that participants were less motivated and felt more tired when working in an
open-plan office space that had high- versus low-noise conditions. The distraction
caused by noise may be key to understanding the short-term effects of noise
on behavior, including increased alcohol consumption (Stafford, Fernandes, &
Agobiani, 2012). If negative feelings from hot temperatures can lead to aggression
under the right circumstances, then noise, which also can produce negative feelings
in people, should lead to aggression at times, too. This is indeed the case (Geen &
McCown, 1984). Lastly, with respect to hearing health, a study in Michigan found
that 70 percent of participants were exposed to typical noise levels that exceeded
Environmental Protection Agency guidelines; such exposure levels could negatively
impact their hearing over the long term (Flamme et al., 2012).
LIGHTING
Lighting also helps structure our perceptions of an environment, and these percep-
tions may influence the type of messages we send. If we enter a dimly lit or candle-
lit room, we may talk more softly, sit closer together, and presume that more
personal communication will take place (Meer, 1985). When dimly lit university
counseling rooms were compared with those that had brighter lighting, students
reported feeling more relaxed in the dimly lit rooms. The dimly lit counseling
rooms also elicited more self-disclosure from the students and higher ratings of the
counselors in those rooms (Miwa & Hanyu, 2006).
When a dimly lit environment is suddenly brightened, it tends to invite less
intimate interaction. For example, the flashing of bright lights in nightclubs that
previously maintained dim lighting is often a signal that closing time is near, and
this allows patrons some time to make the transition from one mood to another.
Carr and Dabbs (1974) found that the use of intimate questions in dim lighting
with nonintimates caused a significant hesitancy in responding, a significant
decrease in eye gaze, and a decrease in the average length of gaze. All of these
nonverbal behaviors appear to be efforts to create more psychological distance
and decrease the perceived inappropriateness of the intimacy created by the light-
ing and questions.
The absence of light seems to be a central problem for people who suffer from
seasonal affective disorder, a form of depression particularly acute in winter
months (Rosenthal, 1993). Therapists have successfully treated those who suffer
from seasonal affective disorder by exposing them to extremely bright light for
several hours each morning. Artificial lighting that provides a full-range light
spectrum, like that of the sun, is most effective in this therapy (Lewy et al., 1998).
In view of this need for sunlight, it has been postulated that cities with the lowest
CHAPTER 4THE EFFECTS OF THE ENVIRONMENT ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 113
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amount of annual sunlight might also have the highest suicide rates, but findings
do not provide support for this hypothesis (Lester, 1988).
MOVABLE OBJECTS
If we know that the arrangement of certain objects in our environment can help
structure communication, it is not surprising that we often try to manipulate
objects to elicit specific responses. Politicians and government officials do this rou-
tinely, when choosing backdrops for their speeches. Manipulating objects in the
environment to communicate particular messages also occurs in personal living
spaces. In preparation for an intimate evening at home, a person may light candles;
play soft, romantic music; fluff the pillows on the couch; and hide the dirty dishes,
clothes, and other unpleasant reminders of daily living.
Employees often use objects to personalize their offices. These signs of personal
identity make them feel more satisfied with their work life and provide visitors with
information to initiate a conversation. Because the company also wants to commu-
nicate its identity, the amount and kinds of personal objects employees display
must also be consistent with the image the company wants to project. Objects in
our work environment can also be arranged to reflect certain role relationships, to
demarcate boundaries, or to encourage greater affiliation. The interior of an execu-
tive suite may clearly indicate the perceived status of the inhabitant; for example,
expensive paintings, a large desk, plush sofas and chairs, and drapes display success
(Monk, 1994). Such an atmosphere may be inappropriate for a personal counseling
situation, but it can be rearranged to make it more conducive to such a purpose. Of
course, we sometimes are able to communicate well in seemingly inappropriate set-
tings by blocking out the messages being sent by the environment, as when lovers
intimately say good-bye in relatively cold and public airport terminals.
Desks seem to be important objects in the conduct of interpersonal communi-
cation. An early experiment in this area, set in a doctors office, suggests that the
presence or absence of a desk may significantly alter the patientsat easestate
(White, 1953). With the desk separating doctor and patient, only 10 percent of the
patients were perceived at ease, whereas removal of the desk increased the percent-
age of at-ease patients to 55 percent. Student-to-student interaction in classrooms
can be constrained by eliminating any possible movement of the student desks or
seats (see Figure 4-5). And studentteacher relationships can also be affected by
desk placement (Zweigenhaft, 1976). Faculty members were asked to sketch the
furniture arrangement of their offices. These sketches were collected and analyzed
with other information obtained from the professors, and a schoolwide teacher
evaluation was conducted. It was found that 24 of 33 senior faculty members put
their desks between themselves and their students, but only 14 of 30 junior faculty
members did so. Furthermore, students rated the unbarricadedprofessors as
more willing to encourage the development of different viewpoints by students,
ready to give individual attention to students who need it,and less likely to
show undue favoritism.Because another study did not find the desk barrier
related to undesirable experiences in studentprofessor interactions, we are
reminded that other factors may neutralize or override the potentially troublesome
effects of the desk barrier (Campbell & Herren, 1978). For example, students
114 PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
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expect greater formality in studentteacher relationships in some situations, and the
basis for an effective working relationship may have been established outside the
professors office, so the barrier is not perceived as such. The podium separating
the presidents press secretary from the press during White House press briefings
also has been perceived both as appropriate and as a barrier to effective communi-
cation. During the Nixon administration, press briefings were formal, and the press
secretary stood behind a podium. Ron Nessen, President Fords press secretary, felt
that the podium contributed to an unproductive us and themfeeling, which
prompted him to conduct briefings without the obstacle.
The arrangement of other furniture items can facilitate or inhibit communica-
tion. The location of the television set in a room will likely affect the placement of
chairs and, in turn, the patterns of conversation in that room. Sommer and Ross
(1958) found that some residents in a geriatric ward were apathetic and had few
friends in spite of a generally cheerful and bright environment. They were able
to double the frequency of resident conversations by rearranging the chairs so
more of them faced each other. Even when conversational possibilities have been
maximized, not everyone will talk to everyone else. Consider the arrangement of
Figure 4-6. Without considering other factors, such as the relationship of the inter-
actants or their knowledge of the subject, we would predict exchanges marked by
the arrows to be most frequent. The four people seated on the couch, as well as
persons F and G, will probably talk to each other less frequently. The four on one
end are not likely to communicate very often with the four on the other end.
In some environments, people are not expected to linger, so chairs are deliberately
designed without comfort in mind. Hotel owners and airport designers are well aware
of the too comfortablephenomenon. You may have noticed the slightly uncomfort-
able nature of the 10 degree forward angle of chairs in some fast-food restaurants.
FIGURE 4-5
A classroom design with immovable chairs discourages student-to-student interactions.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
CHAPTER 4THE EFFECTS OF THE ENVIRONMENT ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 115
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This feature encourages customers to eat and move along quickly to provide seats for
others. The Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York replaced its old wooden seats
with folding plastic seats only 8 inches deep that require so much concentration to
balance that sleeping or even sitting for long is impossible.This was done to keep
homeless people from sleeping in the terminal (Rimer, 1989).
STRUCTURE AND DESIGN
We pass much of our time in buildings. Most of us spend the day in a dwelling
supposedly designed for effective performance of our work; in the evening, we
enter another structure supposedly designed for the effective conduct of our per-
sonal and family life. The architecture of these buildings can go a long way toward
determining who meets whom, where, and perhaps for how long.
The life of domestic animals is controlled through, among other things, the
erection of fences, flap doors, litter boxes, or the placement of food and water in
particular locations. Although verbal and nonverbal actions help control human
situations, manipulation of barriers, openings, and other physical arrangements is
also helpful. Meeting places can be appropriately arranged to regulate human traf-
fic and, to a certain extent, the network of communication.
U.S. office buildings often are constructed from a standard plan that reflects a
pyramidal organization. A large number of people are under the direction of a few
executives at the upper levels. These executives generally have the most space, the
most privacy, and the most desirable office locations, usually on the highest floor
of the structure. Achieving a height above the masses and occupying a significant
amount of space are only two indications of power. Corner offices, large picture
windows, and private elevators also are associated with status and power (Monk,
1994). An office next to an important executive may also be a formidable power
base. A similar pattern seems to exist in academic settings as well, with the higher-
ranking professors normally accorded more space, windows, privacy, and choice of
office location (Farrenkopf & Roth, 1980). The offices of top-level executives are
often hard to reach, the assumption being that the more complicated the path to
get to the executive, the more powerful he or she seems. Figure 4-7 is a hypothetical,
B
ACD
E
FG
H
FIGURE 4-6
Conversation flow and furniture arrangement.
© 2014 Cengage Learning
All Rights Reserved
116 PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
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but not far-fetched, example of the long and circuitous route to a presidentsoffice.
To get to the office, the visitor must be screened by a receptionist and a private sec-
retary and, in either or both places, may be asked to sit and wait. So, although the
status and power of an executive may be related to his or her inaccessibility, secretar-
ies and receptionists may value open views that allow them to act as lookouts and
defenders against unwanted intrusions. It is common for people on the lowest rungs
of the organizational ladder to find themselves in a large, open pit.These so-called
officesreally only desks, sometimes encompassed by a temporary enclosurehave
little or no privacy, and complaints are common. Although privacy is minimal, com-
munication opportunities are plentiful.
Some dormitories are built from floor plans that resemble many office build-
ings and old hotels. It has been speculated that these corridor-type dorms tend to
encourage bureaucratic management, which seems to fit the orderly and uniform
structure. Rigid rules are easier to enforce in these structures, and interaction
among the residents is discouraged. Compared with suite-type dorms, corridor-
type dorms are perceived by residents as more crowded, less private, and more
conducive to avoiding others (Baum & Valins, 1979). The sense of community
and the resulting responsibility for the living space are difficult to achieve. Lounges
are sometimes intended to facilitate such interaction, but their usefulness has been
questioned by architects and behavioral scientists. Lounges, like other design
features, must be integrated into the entire architectural plan developed from
an analysis of human needsnot inserted in places where they fit nicely or look
good for parents and visitors.
If you look carefully, you can see many environmental structures that inhibit or
prohibit communication. Fences separating yards create obvious barriers, even if they
are only waist high; locating laundry rooms in dark, isolated areas of apartment
buildings and public housing discourages their use, particularly at night; providing
access to patios only through a bedroom probably discourages their use; and so on.
FIGURE 4-7
Getting to the presidents office. A, receptionist; B, private secretary; C, president; D, private
room with rear exit.
CHAPTER 4THE EFFECTS OF THE ENVIRONMENT ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 117
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Other environmental situations seem to facilitate interaction. Homes located in
the middle of a block seem to draw more interpersonal exchanges than those
located in other positions. Houses with adjacent driveways seem to have a built-in
structure that draws the neighbors together and invites communication. The likeli-
hood of interaction between strangers at a bar varies directly with the distance
between them. As a rule, a span of three bar stools is the maximum distance over
which patrons will attempt to initiate an encounter. Most bars are not designed
for optimal interaction. Note that the three bar designs in Figure 4-8 provide very
different opportunities for facing an interaction partner, for mutual eye gaze, and
for getting physically close. Most bars are similar to type B, which seems to dis-
courage interaction the most.
Some recent designs for housing the elderly have taken into consideration the
need for social contact. In these apartment dwellings, the doors of the apartments
on each floor open onto a common entranceway. This greatly increases the proba-
bility of social exchange compared to buildings where apartment doors are
staggered on either side of a long hallway with no facing doorways. If you want a
structure that encourages social interaction, you must have human paths that cross,
but if you want people to interact, there must be something that encourages them
to linger. Differences in interaction frequency are often related to the distances
people must travel between activities. For example, consider this comparison made
between two high schools: One was centralizedwith classrooms in one or two
buildings and one was campus stylewith classrooms spread among several
buildings. The campus design prompted 5 to 10 percent more interactions in the
halls, stairs, and lobbies but 7 to 10 percent fewer interactions in the classrooms
than the centralized design. There also were 20 percent fewer interactions between
students and teachers before and after class in the campus-style high school
(Myrick & Marx, 1968). It is no secret that the architecture of a school can affect
a students motivation to learn, a teachers motivation to teach, how much students
and teachers talk to each other, how long they talk, and, to a certain extent, what
they talk about. Older school designs were often based on how to maintain strict
discipline, emphasize status differences between students and teachers, and mini-
mize informal talking.
Architects and social scientists have even been experimenting with new prison
designs. The older structures, which had linear tiers of steel cages, are being
replaced with modular units that have fewer inmates and fewer barriers between
them and their guards. These new designs, coupled with new ways of managing
prisoners, seem to result in more positive behavior on the part of both guards
FIGURE 4-8
Designs for drinking.
118 PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
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and prisoners, provide more opportunities for rehabilitation, and reduce costs
(Cronin, 1992).
Furthermore, an environments design may encourage or discourage certain
types of communication; that is, the structure may determine how much interaction
takes place and the general content of that interaction. Drew (1971) reports a study
of three different designs for nursing stations within a mental hospital. In one,
interaction had to take place by opening a door; in another, interaction was con-
ducted through a glass-enclosed counter; and in the third, interaction took place
over an open counter. Although substantially more patients entered the nursing
station through the door, interactions occurred less frequently there than in the
other two stations. An average of only 1 interaction per each 15-minute observa-
tion period occurred with the door, 5.3 interactions occurred in the glass-enclosed
counter, and 8.7 occurred with the open counter. Although interaction was higher
for the open counter, the author noted a preponderance of social conversation
here; the door design seemed to encourage more item requests and permission
interactions. In short, the more inaccessible setting decreased interaction frequency
and increased task-oriented messages; the more accessible setting increased interac-
tion frequency and increased the amount of small talk.
A more complete analysis of physical proximity and spatial distance appears in
Chapter 5, but it is clearly relevant to this discussion on environments as well.
Over 60 years ago, Stouffer (1940) made this observation, which holds true today:
Whether one is seeking to explain why persons go to a particular place to get jobs,
why they go to trade at a particular store, why they go to a particular neighborhood
to commit a crime, or why they marry a particular spouse they choose, the factor of
spatial distance is of obvious significance. (p. 845)
Many studies have confirmed Stouffers remark. Students tend to develop stronger
friendships with students who share their classes, dormitories, and apartment
buildings, or who sit near them than with others who are geographically distant.
Workers tend to develop closer friendships with those who work near them.
The effect of proximity seems to be stronger for employees with less status in the
organization; managers, however, are more likely to choose their friends at the
office according to their status rather than their proximity (Schutte & Light,
1978). Some believe that increased proximity of ethnic groups will assist in reduc-
ing prejudice. Although close proximity may bring about positive attitude changes
between different ethnic groups, we must exercise caution in generalizing. If the
two groups are extremely polarized, or if they perceive no mutual problems or pro-
jects requiring cooperation, proximity may have little effect or may even magnify
hostilities.
Several studies show an inverse relationship between the distance separating
potential marriage partners and the number of marriages. Proximity allows us to
obtain more information about the other person. Obviously, obtaining more infor-
mation about someone may mean we soon learn that we are not attracted to the
person, but more often than not, proximity breeds attraction and, in turn, attrac-
tion leads to a desire to be in close proximity.
A number of studies have shown how proximity influences friendships. In one
study conducted in a townhouse development, most friendships occurred between
CHAPTER 4THE EFFECTS OF THE ENVIRONMENT ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 119
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people who lived within 100 feet of each other. Next-door neighbors became close
friends 46 percent of the time; neighbors who lived two or three doors away
became close friends 24 percent of the time; and people who lived three or four
doors away became friends 13 percent of the time (Athanasiou & Yoshioka,
1973). Historically, the most famous study of proximity, friendship choice, and
interpersonal contact was conducted by Festinger, Schachter, and Back (1950) in a
housing development for married students. Concern for what the authors called
functional distance led to data clearly demonstrating that architects can have a
tremendous influence on the social life of residents in these housing projects.
Functional distance is determined by the number of contacts that position and
design encourage; for example, factors such as which way apartments face, where
exits and entranceways are located, and location of stairways, mailboxes, and the
like all have an impact. Figure 4-9 shows the basic design of one type of building
studied.
The researchers asked the residents of 17 buildings, with the design of
Figure 4-9, which people they saw most often socially and what friendship choices
they made. Among the findings from this study, the following are noteworthy:
1. There seemed to be a greater number of friendship choices for those physically
close to one another, such as on the same floor or in the same building. It was
rare to find a friendship between people separated by more than four or five
houses.
2. People living in apartments 1 and 5 gave and received from the upper-floor
residents more friendship choices than the people living in any other apart-
ments on the lower floor.
3. Apartments 1 and 6 exchanged more friendship choices than apartments 2
and 7. Similarly, apartments 5 and 10 exchanged more friendship choices than
apartments 4 and 9. Although this represented the same physical distance,
functional distance differed.
4. Because of the mailboxes, apartment 5 chose more upper-level friends, more of
those choices being apartments 9 and 10.
Making friends takes many forms these days. In the physical world, functional
distance seems to be highly influential, and it is sometimes the result of architec-
tural design. However, the importance of such factors may be diminishing in the
age of the Internet. People start relationships with others through online services,
FIGURE 4-9
Design influences the social lives of residents in apartment buildings.
120 PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
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such as Match.com and eHarmony. The number of people who get married to
someone they met through online dating services is growing. Because of physical
distance or lack of opportunity to cross paths with each other, these couples might
never have met in the pre-Internet days. Moreover, people can start and maintain
friendships with others via their Facebook accounts. In modern classrooms, for
example, college students can stay in touch with someone from their hometown
while ignoring someone who is sitting nearby. By logging in to a Facebook
account, the current design and structure of the setting the student is in, whether it
is the dorm, classroom, or student lounge area, may not matterhe or she is in
cyberspace.
REGULATING ENVIRONMENTS AND COMMUNICATION
It should be clear by now that our communication is often affected by the social
and physical environment. And we have some control over structuring these envir-
onments; we can paint our walls a different color, substitute candles for electric
lights, and so on. But our communication environments are influenced by others,
too. Earlier in this chapter, we noted how architects and furniture designers affect
our social interaction, but laws and government regulations also play an important
role in creating the environments that affect our communicative behavior. It is
important to conclude the chapter with this reminder because gaining control over
the environment that affects our communication may mean becoming a community
activist or leader.
Zoning laws, for example, determine whether a part of our environment will
be used for industrial, commercial, or residential activity. Zoning laws also deter-
mine the population density of an area by defining how many housing units per
acre are allowed. Laws prohibiting adult bookstores from operating too close to
churches are essentially saying the two environments generate quite different forms
of communication and are not likely to happily share the same territory. When
business hours of operation are regulated, it affects when streets are empty, when
they are crowded, and what segment of the population occupies the street. Some
communities have specific laws governing signs and billboards, where they can be
placed, their size, materials, and colors that can be used, and so on. Obviously
these and similar regulations governing parking areas, parks, display windows,
and vending machines impact our social lives.
In addition, there are penal codes that punish loitering, smoking, drinking
alcoholic beverages, and other behaviors. Smoking regulations have changed
things such as where smokers are allowed to congregate. As a consequence,
smokers today may have a greater feeling of us (namely, the in-group of smo-
kers) versus them (namely, the out-group of nonsmokers) than did smokers of
the past. Moreover, in places that prohibit smoking, including college campuses,
smokers may be viewed as, and feel deviant for, the practice of lighting up.
Thus, in an effort to safeguard the well-being of those who occupy it, an
environment may be restructured both in a physical way (designated smoking
areas) and in a psychological way (e.g., regulations that recast the behavior of
smoking).
CHAPTER 4THE EFFECTS OF THE ENVIRONMENT ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 121
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SUMMARY
The environment in which people communicate
frequently contributes to the overall outcome of
their encounters. We have seen that both the
frequency and the content of our messages are
influenced by various aspects of the setting in
which we communicate. We have seen how the
environment influences our behavior, but we
also know that we can alter environments to elicit
certain types of responses. As our knowledge of
environments increases, we may deliberately use
them to help us obtain desired responses. In many
respects, we are products of our environment, and
if we want to change behavior, we need to learn to
control the environment in which we interact.
Throughout this chapter, we referred to a
number of different types of environments: class-
rooms, dormitories, offices, prisons, fast-food
restaurants, homes, and bars. We suggested sev-
eral different ways of looking at environments.
Mehrabian (1976), following research in other
areas of human perception, commented that
all environments could profitably be examined
by looking at emotional reactions to them.
These emotions or feelings, says Mehrabian,
can be plotted on three dimensions: arousing
nonarousing, pleasantunpleasant, and dominant
submissive. We suggested six perceptual bases
for examining environments: formalinformal,
warmcold, privatepublic, familiarunfamiliar,
constrainingfree, and distantclose. We also
pointed out that people perceive temporal aspects
of their environments: when things happen, how
long they last, how much time exists between
events, and the pattern or rhythm of events.
Each environment seems to have three major
characteristics: (1) the natural environment,
(2) the presence or absence of other people, and
(3) the architectural design and movable objects,
including lighting, sound, color, and general
visual-aesthetic appeal. The quality and quantity
of the research in each of these areas vary consid-
erably, but it is clear that any analysis of human
behavior must account for the influence of envi-
ronmental features.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Select a familiar environment that effectively
encourages or discourages human interaction.
Now indicate all the changes you would make
so this environment would have the exact
opposite effect.
2. Assume the role of a stranger entering your
own apartment or your familys home. What
messages does the environment communicate?
3. The impact of environmental features on
human behavior will vary as a function of
context, but what features do you think
play a large or small role across different
contexts? Explain your choices.
4. How do people communicate time-related
messages by their behavior?
5. To get an idea of your time perspective, take
the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory,
which is available online.
122 PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
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THE EFFECTS OF TERRITORY AND PERSONAL
SPACE ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION
[CHAPTER5]
If you can read this, youre too close,announces a familiar automobile bumper
sticker in an attempt to regulate the amount of space between vehicles for traffic
safety. Signs reading Keep Out,”“Private Property,and Authorized Personnel
Onlyare also attempts to regulate space among human beings. We do not put up
signs in daily conversation, but we use other signals to avoid uncomfortable crowd-
ing and other perceived invasions of our personal space. Our use of spaceour
own and others’—can dramatically affect our ability to achieve certain desired
communication goals, whether those goals involve romance, diplomacy, or aggres-
sion. A fundamental concept in any discussion of human spatial behavior is the
notion of territoriality. An understanding of this concept provides a useful perspec-
tive for our later examination of conversational space.
THE CONCEPT OF TERRITORIALITY
The term territoriality has been used for years in the study of animal and bird
behavior. Generally, it means behavior characterized by identification with a geo-
graphic area in a way that indicates ownership and often involves defense of this
territory against perceived invaders. For humans, territoriality concerns physical
items (my book) and physical space (my dorm room), objects or ideas (my
proposed solution) that we feel we have psychological ownership of, as well as
some combination of the two (plagiarism is stealing another persons thoughts by
using his or her words and claiming them as your own).
Spatial changes give a tone to a communication, accent it, and at times even
override the spoken word.
E. T. Hall
123
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There are many kinds of territorial behavior, and frequently such behaviors
perform useful functions for a given species. For instance, territorial behaviors may
help coordinate activities, regulate density, ensure propagation of the species, hold
the group together, provide a sense of well-being, and offer hiding places. Most
behavioral scientists agree that territoriality exists in human behavior. It helps reg-
ulate social interaction, but it also can be the source of social conflict. Like other
animals, the more powerful, dominant humans seem to have control over more
territoryas long as the group or societal structure is stable.
Altman (1975) identified three types of territories: (1) primary, (2) secondary,
and (3) public. The key distinction is the extent of ownership felt or warranted.
Primary territories are clearly the exclusive domain of the owner. They are central
to the daily functioning of the owner, and they are guarded carefully against intru-
ders. For this reason, the invisible buffer zone surrounding our body also qualifies
as a primary territory. It is not stationary and visible, like other territories, but the
degree of ownership is extremely high, access to others is often very limited, and
the defense against intrusions can be particularly fierce.
Homes or bedrooms often qualify as primary territory. Goffmans(1971)
description of possessional territorieswhich include personal effects such as jackets,
purses, and even dependent childrenalso seems to fit the requirements of primary
territory. In this same category, Goffman discusses objects that can be claimed tem-
porarily by people, for example, a magazine, television set, or eating utensils. These
objects, however, seem to be more representative of what Altman calls secondary
territories, which are not as central to the daily life of the owner, nor are they per-
ceived as clearly exclusive to the owner. The neighborhood bar or those objects like
magazines or television sets are examples of secondary territories. More frequent
conflicts are apt to develop over these territories because the publicprivate bound-
ary is blurred. The following exchange is an example of this conflict: Let me watch
my program on TV. I was here first.”“ItsnotyourTV.Youdont own it.
Public territories are available to almost anyone for temporary ownership. Parks,
beaches, streets, seats on public transportation, telephone booths, a place in line, or an
unobstructed line of vision to see a particular object of interest are examples. The terms
temporary occupancy or ownership are important. A cleaning person who enters our
office to clean without our permission might be offensive because permission was not
granted, but the intrusion is temporary and job related. It would be a different story,
however, if this person occupied the office all day or used it for noncleaning activities,
such as eating lunch. The chairs in a classroom are theoretically available to anyone in
the class for temporary occupancy, but frequent use or a desirable location can result
in greater perceived ownership and territorial behavior (Kaya, 2007).
Territorial behavior seems to be a standard part of our daily contact with
others, and it also is evident when sufficient social contact is denied. Altman and
Haythorn (1967) analyzed the territorial behavior of socially isolated and noniso-
lated pairs of men. For 10 days, two individuals lived in a small room with no out-
side contact while a matched group received outside contacts. The men in the
isolated groups showed a gradual increase in territorial behavior and a general pat-
tern of social withdrawal; they desired more time alone. Their territorial behavior
first evidenced itself with fixed objects, areas of the room, and personal objects such
as beds. Later they began to claim more mobile and less personal objects. When the
124 PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
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two men living together were incompatible with respect to dominance and affiliation,
this resulted in greater territorial behavior.
TERRITORIALITY: INVASION AND DEFENSE
We have to deal with the potential of other people invading our physical territory
at many different levels, including our bodies, our personal belongings, our per-
sonal space, our home, our neighborhood, our work/school environment (Brown &
Robinson, 2011), and our nation. For example, instructions to police interrogators
sometimes suggest sitting close to the suspect without the intervention of a desk
that might provide protection or comfort. This theory of interrogation assumes
that invasion of the suspects personal territory, with little opportunity for defense,
will give the officer a psychological advantage. Other examples of human territorial
invasion and defense include members of adolescent gangs and ethnic groups who
stake out territory in urban areas and defend it against intruders. Preserving
national boundaries often underlies international disputes. What happens when
somebody invades your territory? For instance, how do you feel when the car
behind you is tailgating? When you have to stand in an overpopulated theater
lobby or bus? When somebody sits in yourseat? What do you do? Researchers
have asked similar questions, and their answers help us understand further how
we treat the objects and space around us.
Obviously, not all territorial encroachments are the same. Lyman and Scott
(1967) identify three types:
1. Violation involves the unwarranted use of anothers territory. This may be done
with the eyes (staring at somebody eating in a public restaurant); with the voice
or other sounds (somebody talking loudly nearby on a cell phone or construc-
tion noise next to a classroom); or with the body (taking up two subway seats).
2. Invasion is more all-encompassing and permanent. It is an attempt to take
over anothers territory. This may be an armed invasion of another country or
the act of a wife who has turned her husbands den into her computer room.
3. Contamination is defiling anothers territory, not by our presence but by what
we leave behind. When we take temporary occupancy of a hotel room, for
instance, we do not want to find the previous ownerstoilet articles and soiled
sheets. Similarly, we are frequently upset when someone elses dog leaves feces in
our yard, or when we find food particles on oursilverware in restaurants.
Encroachments on our territory do not always produce defensive maneuvers.
The intensity of our reaction to territorial encroachment varies depending on a
number of factors, including the following:
1. Who violated our territory? We may have very different reactions to friends
or acquaintancesviolations as opposed to those of strangers. We may be more
inclined to share personal things, including our space, with people we know
(Kaya & Weber, 2003). We may also react differently depending on the gen-
der, status, and age of the violator.
2. Why did they violate our territory? If we feel that the violator knew better,
we might react more strongly than if we felt he or she couldnt help itor
was naive.
CHAPTER 5THE EFFECTS OF TERRITORY AND PERSONAL SPACE ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 125
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3. What type of territory was it? We are more likely to perceive a violation of
our primary territory as far more serious than the violation of a secondary or
public territory we are occupying, although people sometimes attribute more
ownership to secondary and public territories than they deserve.
4. How was the violation accomplished? Was it done in a threatening way? If our
body is touched, we may be more aroused and defensive than if someone walks
across our yard. On the other hand, sometimes any intrusion, whether made in a
threatening manner or not, will be perceived as a threat (Ruback & Kohli, 2005).
5. How long did the encroachment last? If the violation is perceived as tempo-
rary, reactions may be less severe.
6. Do we expect further violations in the future? If so, the initial territorial
defense may be more intense.
7. Where did the violation occur? The population density and opportunities for
negotiating new territorial boundaries will surely affect our reaction.
The two primary methods for territorial defense are prevention and reaction.
Prevention is a means of staking out our territory so others recognize it as ours
and go elsewhere. We may position ourselves in such a way so as to keep others
away from ourspace (see Figure 5-1). A persons mere presence in a place can
keep others from entering it. If we stay in a place long enough or often enough,
FIGURE 5-1
Territorial defense.
Terrence Horgan
126 PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
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others think we ownit (e.g., a seat in a classroom). Sometimes we ask others to
assist us in staking out and defending territory: Would you hold my seat while I
go get some popcorn?
Objects are also used as territorial markers to designate yourspatial area. In
places with relatively low density, markers such as umbrellas, coats, and notebooks
are often effective; indeed, sometimes these markers will reserve not only a seat in a
public area but also an entire table. Markers that appear more personal may be more
effective in preventing violations but are also vulnerable to theft. If the marked terri-
tory is highly desirable to many others in the immediate area, markers probably will
maintain their effectiveness for shorter periods of time. In public territories, it may be
more effective to leave several markers, as these areas are open to nearly everyone.
Commuters on trains with a seating arrangement that requires three passengers to sit
side by side illustrate how territorial intrusion is sometimes the result of the combined
behavior by the protector of the territory and the intruder. Passengers seated on the
inside and outside of the three-seat arrangement position their legs, belongings, news-
papers, and so on, to convey the idea that sitting in the middle seat in theirterritory
is forbidden. At the same time, many commuters who could sit in the vacant middle
seats with two strangers on each side decide that taking the middle-seat territory is
less desirable than standing or sitting on the floorunless, of course, they are so tired
that this is a less desirable course of action (McGeehan, 2005; see Figure 5-2).
Sometimes the uniforms people are wearing identify a territory that can be
legitimately used by a particular person. Often we construct fences and grow
hedges to demarcate territory. And sometimes we stake out territory simply by the
way we conduct our verbal interaction; a special jargon or dialect can warn others
that a particular space is reserved for those who know the language.
If the prevention of territorial violations does not work, how do people react?
When people come close to us in face-to-face encounters, we are physiologically
FIGURE 5-2
Seating on a commuter train.
Susan Stava/The New York Times
CHAPTER 5THE EFFECTS OF TERRITORY AND PERSONAL SPACE ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 127
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aroused, and heart rate and galvanic skin responses increase (Finando, 1973;
McBride, King, & James, 1965). (Note that these are generalized arousal responses,
not sexual ones.) Men take longer to start urinating when another man is standing
at a closer compared to a farther-away urinal (Middlemist, Knowles, & Matter,
1976). These arousal responses are not restricted to approaching humans; Llobera,
Spanlang, Ruffini, and Slater (2011) found that people also showed signs of increased
physiological arousal the closer they were approached by virtual characters.
Once aroused, we need to label our state as positive (liking, love, relief) or neg-
ative (dislike, embarrassment, stress, anxiety). If the aroused state is labeled posi-
tively, according to Patterson (1976), we will reciprocate the behavior; if it is
labeled negatively, we will take measures to compensate. If someone is aroused by
another persons approach and identifies it as undesirable, we could predict behav-
ior designed to restore the proper distance between the interactants: looking away,
changing the topic to a less personal one, crossing the arms to form a frontal bar-
rier to the invasion, covering body parts, rubbing the neck to point the elbow
sharply toward the invader, and so on. Russo conducted a 2-year study of invading
the territory of female college students seated in a college library (Sommer, 1969).
The study compared the responses of those invaded and a similar group that was
not invaded. Several different invasion techniques were used: sitting next to sub-
jects, across from them, and so on. The quickest departure or flight was triggered
when the researcher sat next to a subject and moved her chair closer by approxi-
mately a foot. Other researchers have suggested that when strangers are involved,
males feel more stress from frontal invasions, whereas women react more unfavor-
ably to adjacent invasions (Fisher & Byrne, 1975). After approximately 30 minutes,
about 70 percent of the people Russo approached at the 1-foot distance moved.
From Russos study, a whole vocabulary of defense was developed. For instance,
defensive and offensive displays included the use of position, posture, and gesture.
Position refers to location in the room; a newcomer to the room will interpret the sit-
uation differently if the other person has selected a corner position rather than one in
the middle of the room. Posture refers to indicators such as whether a person has
materials spread out like he or she owned the space or whether they are tightly orga-
nized. Gestures can be used to indicate receptivity or rejection of communication, for
example, hostile glances, turning or leaning away, and blocking with hands or arms.
Although verbal defense is not a common first reaction, requests or even profanity
can be effectively used. Russos work is summarized by Sommer (1969):
There were wide individual differences in the ways victims reactedthere is no single
reaction to someones sitting too close; there are defensive gestures, shifts in posture,
and attempts to move away. If these fail or are ignored by the invader, or he shifts
position too, the victim eventually takes to flight.There was a dearth of direct verbal
responses to the invasions.Only one of the eighty students asked the invader to
move over. (pp. 3536)
It is worth remembering that the norm of politeness is strong enough to inhibit
such direct verbal responses. This demonstrates one important feature of nonverbal
communication: It is often off the record and can convey messages subtly without
provoking confrontation. The person who glares, shuffles papers, or leans away
does not have to acknowledge publicly his or her irritation. Barash (1973)
128 PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
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conducted a study similar to Russos, but the library invadersstatus was manipu-
lated. Students fled more quickly from more formally dressed, high-statusinva-
ders. Knowles (1973) also experimented with a familiar type of invasion: talking
to somebody in a hallway leaving other people to decide whether to walk through
the conversants or around them. Only 25 percent of the people in this study
walked through, but when the conversants were replaced with barrels, 75 percent
of the passersby walked through. The fewest intrusions occurred with four-person
groups, rather than a dyad, and high-statusconversants (i.e., those older and
more formally dressed). This study illustrates that, besides not wanting others to
violate our territory, we generally do not want to violate othersterritory either, as
the mumbled apologies and bowed heads of some of Knowless invaders testified.
Increasing population density also results in territorial violations. What hap-
pens when the population becomes so dense that we cannot exercise the usual terri-
torial behavior?
DENSITY AND CROWDING
During the 1960s, many people were alarmed about the rapidly increasing world
population. The first edition of Erlichs (1971) best-selling book, The Population
Bomb, was published in 1968. It pointed to a rapidly increasing birth rate and pre-
dicted the death of hundreds of millions of people due to the effects of an overpopu-
lated world. The growth of urban areas and increasing violence in inner-city areas
also fueled concern for the effects of population growth. The central question was
this: If worldwide population were to increase dramatically, would there be dire con-
sequences? Some highly publicized research with rats seemed to fully support the fear
that bad things would happen in highly dense populations (Calhoun, 1962).
Calhoun noted that with plenty of food and no danger from predators,
Norway rats in a quarter-acre outdoor pen stabilized their population at about
150. His observations, covering 28 months, indicated that spatial relationships are
extremely important. He then designed an experiment in which he could maintain
a stressful situation through overpopulation while three generations of rats were
reared. He labeled this experiment a behavioral sink, an area or receptacle where
most of the rats exhibited gross distortions of normal behavior. Some of Calhouns
observations are worth noting:
1. Some rats withdrew from social and sexual intercourse completely; others
began to mount anything in sight; courtship patterns were totally disrupted,
and females were frequently pursued by several males.
2. Nest-building patterns, ordinarily neat, became sloppy or nonexistent.
3. Litters of young rats became mixed; newborn and young rats were stepped on
or eaten by invading hyperactive males.
4. Unable to establish spatial territories, dominant males fought over positions near
the eating bins; the hyperactive males violated all territorial rights by running
around in packs and disregarding any boundaries except those backed by force.
5. Pregnant rats frequently had miscarriages; disorders of the sex organs were
numerous; only a fourth of the 558 newborns in the sink survived to be weaned.
6. Aggressive behavior increased significantly.
CHAPTER 5THE EFFECTS OF TERRITORY AND PERSONAL SPACE ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 129
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Can we generalize from rats to people? Some early studies that found moderate
correlations between various socially undesirable outcomes such as crime, delin-
quency, mental and physical disorders, and high population density seemed to sug-
gest so. Others facetiously contended that the only generalization we could make
from Calhouns work was Dont crowd rats!But even this is an overstatement.
Judge (2000), who analyzed numerous studies of high density among animal popu-
lations, would probably say Dont crowd rats with aggressive tendencies.In his
own words:
The individual characteristics and aggressive tendencies of animals that compose popu-
lations can influence aggression more so than increasing population density. Even the
results of Calhouns (1962) influential rat studies were dictated by the unique behavior
of a few individuals. The infamous behavioral sinksdeveloped when a few dominant
adult males established breeding territories in quarter sections of the compartmental-
ized pens used in the experiments. The remainder of the colony became restricted to
single compartments. In colonies in which males did not establish territories or did so
in a manner that did not restrict the rest of the colony, no behavioral sinksdevel-
oped (Calhoun, 1962). This outcome of increased density is rarely cited. (p. 144)
Other studies show that animals do not always respond to high density in neg-
ative or aggressive ways (Freedman, 1979; Judge & de Waal, 1993). In one study,
the number of aggressive acts performed by monkeys living in environments of dif-
fering densities, from cages to free-ranging activity on an island, was compared
(Judge & de Waal, 1997). Aggression was not significantly more prevalent in
high-density environments, but coping behavior was. As density increased, the fol-
lowing types of coping behavior also increased: mutual grooming, rapid reconcilia-
tion after a fight, and the use of specific facial expressions to indicate the desire to
avoid trouble. This tendency to develop ways to cope with high-density life in ways
other than aggression is much like the human adaptations reported in the next two
sections. Behavioral sinks are not an inevitable result of unchecked population
growth. Stress and aggression among those in high-density situations may also be
affected by the amount of space available, the duration of the high-density experi-
ence, the ability to enact coping behavior, the extent to which key relationships
can be maintained, and other factors. In other words, the widely publicized results
of Calhouns work, which suggested unequivocally harmful consequences of
increasing population density, are incorrect. Based on human-density and crowding
research conducted thus far, the results are complex and do not lend themselves to
a simple crowding is badconclusion. To understand the effects of population
density on human beings, we must first distinguish between the terms density and
crowding. Density refers to the number of people per unit of space; crowding is a
feeling state that may develop in high- or low-density situations. Perceptions of
being crowded may be elicited by the following factors:
1. Environmental factors, such as reduced space; unwanted noise; the lack of
needed resources or the ability to obtain them; and the absence of territorial
markers, such as screens and partitions.
2. Personal factors, such as gender (males may feel the effects of density more
acutely than females); personality characteristics reflecting low self-esteem,
high dominance, or high need for control; a low desire for social contact; and
prior unpleasant experiences with high density.
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3. Social factors, such as a high frequency of unwanted social contact from many
people at close quarters and the inability to change such patterns; inescapable
interactions with people from an unfamiliar group; and unpleasant interactions
that may be perceived as hostile or competitive. As one example, aggression at
night clubs may be due, in part, to interior designs that lead to crowding; specifi-
cally, Macintyre and Homel (1997) found that high-risk clubs for aggression had
interior designs that resulted in more cross-flow traffic (i.e., people going in two
directions) and thus more opportunities for unintended contact (e.g., bumping)
between people.
4. Goal-related factors, such as the inability to accomplish what is desired.
The central theme characterizing most of the research in this area is that perceptions of
crowding tend to increase as we perceive a decrease in our ability to control and influ-
ence our physical and social surroundings. Although the factors in the preceding list
may contribute to perceptions of crowding, most high-density situations are character-
ized by some factors that decrease control and some that do not. Given these condi-
tions, what can we say about the effects of high density and human reactions to it?
THE EFFECTS OF HIGH DENSITY ON HUMAN BEINGS
Definitions of density are complex and varied. Correlational studies have used the
number of people per city, per census tract, or per dwelling unit; the number of
rooms per dwelling unit; the number of buildings per neighborhood; and so on.
Experimental studies sometimes put the same-sized group into different-sized
rooms; others vary the number of people in the same room. Laboratory studies
that vary density to analyze its effects on perceptions of crowding may have rele-
vance only to those situations in which high density is a temporary condition,
such as on elevators and buses. Few studies have considered the rate at which high
density evolves, or whether participants feel they had any control over the develop-
ment of a high-density situation. To sort through these variations in measurement,
the following conclusions seem warranted.
First, it seems clear that increased density does not automatically increase stress or
antisocial behavior in human beings. Sometimes we even seek the pleasures of density
(see Figure 5-3). Football games and rock concerts are familiar examples. If we take
responsibility for our presence in a highly populated situation, and if we know the
condition will terminate in a matter of hours, the chances of negative effects seem to
be greatly reduced. Nevertheless, negative effects of density do occur. In one study,
classroom density decreased girlsacademic achievement and negatively affected
boysbehavior (Maxwell, 2003). In another study, residential density was positively
associated with the likelihood of adolescents being overweight in Nanjing, China (Xu
et al., 2010). Other studies have found resultssuch as aggression, stress, criminal
activity, hostility toward others, and a deterioration of mental and physical health
that might fit well into a behavioral-sink theory. However, we find other studies in
which other environmental factors may offer greater explanatory power or that fail
to confirm these highly negative effects altogether. With regard to adolescents, it may
be that their proximity to crime contributes more to their substance abuse problems
than does the population density of their neighborhoods (Mason & Mennis, 2010).
When negative outcomes are not found, the explanation usually lies in the fact that
CHAPTER 5THE EFFECTS OF TERRITORY AND PERSONAL SPACE ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 131
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the environmental, personal, social, and goal-related factors mentioned earlier could
provide a form of control that was influential in offsetting undesirable influences. For
example, Altman (1975) cites a study by Rohe and Patterson (1974), which found that
if children were provided with enough of the toys they wanted, increased density
would not produce the withdrawal and aggression suggested by previous studies.
Some high-density neighborhoods that are highly cohesive actually have a lower inci-
dence of mental and physical health problems.
Second, we sometimes blame high density for undesirable effects, either
because it is an obvious feature of the situation and has a reputation for causing
problems, or because the real causes are things we do not wish to face. Students
who took a long time to complete their college registration tended to perceive the
large number of students trying to register as the cause for their delays. They did
not attribute their delays to forgetting needed forms, filling out forms incorrectly,
and not preparing alternative course selections prior to registration (Gochman &
Keating, 1980). High density can produce a host of problems, but human beings
do not stand by passively in situations that demand a long-term commitment to
high density; instead, they try various methods to cope with or offset potentially
harmful effects. What are some of the methods of coping?
COPING WITH HIGH DENSITY
City dwellers are often exposed to an overload of information, people, things, pro-
blems, and so forth. As a result, they engage in behavior designed to reduce this
FIGURE 5-3
A high-density beach.
Alessandro Oliva/Photos.com
132 PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
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overload, which sometimes causes outsiders to see them as distant and emotionally
detached from others. Here are some of the methods for coping in populated cities:
1. Spending less time with each input, for example, having shorter conversations
with people
2. Disregarding low-priority inputs, for example, ignoring the drunk on the side-
walk or not talking to people seen on a commuter train every day
3. Shifting the responsibility for some transactions to others, for example, reliev-
ing bus drivers of the responsibility for making change
4. Blocking inputs, for example, using attendants to guard apartment buildings
Nigerian students used nine different strategies to cope with high-density con-
ditions in their residence halls (Amole, 2005). Strategies used to clearly define per-
sonal territory and studying in less dense locations were two of the most common.
Evans and colleagues (2010) showed in both a U.S. and a UK sample that the link
between household crowding, measured as the number of people per room, and
childrens lack of readiness for school may be due, in part, to a reduction in mater-
nal responsiveness. Now let us shift our attention from spatial relationships in
overpopulated conditions to those involved in a two-person conversation.
CONVERSATIONAL DISTANCE
As children, we are exposed to gradually increasing distances for various communi-
cation situations. The first few years of life provide a familiarity with what is known
as intimate distance; the child then learns appropriate conversational distances for
an increasing number of acquaintances and friends; and by about age 7, the child
may have incorporated the concept of public distance into his or her behavioral rep-
ertoire. So by about the third grade, children have learned that conversational dis-
tance has meaning. As they age, children will gradually reflect adult norms for their
culture as they make spatial adjustments for interactants who are known or
unknown, tall or short, higher status or lower status, and so on. What are these
adult norms? What are comfortable conversational distances? (see Figure 5-4).
To answer these questions, first we turn to the astute observations about
human spatial behavior made by anthropologist Edward T. Hall (1959, 1966).
Hall identified several types of space, but our concern here is with what he called
informal space. Others have referred to this as personal space, but because the
space between people is the result of negotiating their personal preferences, it is
more appropriately labeled interpersonal space. The informal space for each indi-
vidual expands and contracts under varying circumstances, depending on the type
of encounter, the relationship of the communicating persons, their personalities,
and many other factors. Hall identified four types of informal space: (1) intimate,
(2) casualpersonal, (3) socialconsultative, and (4) public. According to
Hall, intimate distances range from actual physical contact to about 18 inches;
casualpersonal extends from 1.5 to 4 feet; socialconsultative,forimpersonalbusi-
ness, ranges from 4 to 12 feet; and public distance covers the area from 12 feet to
the limits of visibility or hearing. Hall was quick to note that these distances are
based on his observations of a particular sample of adults from business and profes-
sional occupations, primarily white middle-class males native to the northeastern
CHAPTER 5THE EFFECTS OF TERRITORY AND PERSONAL SPACE ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 133
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FIGURE 5-4
Variations in conversational distance and position.
Jeff Greenberg/PhotoEdit Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock.com
134 PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
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United States, and any generalization to other ethnic and racial groups in the
United States should be made with considerable caution. Sommer (1961) also
sought answers to questions about comfortable conversational distance. He studied
people who were brought into a room and told to discuss various impersonal
topics. Two sofas were placed in the room at various distances, and subjects were
observed to see whether they sat opposite or beside each other. It was hypothesized
that when they began to sit side by side, it would mean the conversational distance
was too far to sit opposite each other on the two couches. From 1 to 3 feet, the
subjects sat on different couches facing each other. Beyond 3.5 feet, people sat
side by side. If we measure distance nose to nose,this would make the partici-
pants 5.5 feet apart when they started to sit side by side, assuming they were not
DOYOU WALK THIS WAY?
Walking is another area in
which interpersonal distance
and spatial arrangement
have been investigated. In a
naturalistic study, Costa
(2010) filmed people as
they walked by a designat-
ed area in one of two Ital-
ian cities. He examined the
alignment (i.e., the degree
to which people were
walking side by side), spa-
tial arrangement (i.e., how
people were positioned in
relation to one another),
and walking speed of peo-
ple as a function of the size
(two to five people) and
gender composition of the group (only males, only females, mixed gender). The findings for alignment
and spatial arrangement follow:
Mixed-gender dyads were the most aligned (e.g., when looking at the two people from the side, the
horizontal distance between their heads was the shortest). Malemale dyads were the most out of align-
ment. And femalefemale dyads were somewhere in between.
In mixed-gender dyads, males were more likely than females to be the person walking ahead of the other.
The spatial arrangement found in triads, from the most to the least likely, was as follows: (1) The two
side people were walking aligned and ahead of the middle person (see photo above); (2) all three were
out of alignment with the middle person behind one person on one side and ahead of the other person
on the other side; (3) the two people on the sides were walking in alignment behind the middle person;
and (4) all three people were walking in alignment.
In triads, there was greater alignment when the walkers were all females than when they were all males
or when there were members of both sexes present.
Terrence Horgan
CHAPTER 5THE EFFECTS OF TERRITORY AND PERSONAL SPACE ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 135
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leaning forward or backward. In a follow-up study, Sommer used chairs, which
allowed him to vary side-by-side distance as well as the distance across. Here he
found that people chose to sit across from each other until the distance across
exceeded the side-by-side distance; they then sat side by side.
How generalizable are these findings? A critical look at this study immediately
leads us to question what other variables may affect the distance relationship. For
instance, this study was conducted with people who knew each other slightly,
were discussing impersonal topics, and were in a large lounge. How would other
factors affect the distance relationship? For a long time, researchers have theorized
that distance is based on the balance of approach and avoidance forces. What are
some of these forces? Burgoon (1978) and Burgoon and Jones (1976) say that the
distances we assume in a given conversation are a function of our cultural and
personal expectations for appropriate distances. When someone violates these
expectations, it garners our attention. Sometimes the violation is so immediately
aversive that we flee or become very defensive. On other occasions, we mentally
process the nature of the violation and the violator to determine our response. The
violation of personal space may be judged to be more positive or more negative
than the expected behavior, and we adapt accordingly. When the positive or nega-
tive nature of the violation is not clear, we assess our perceptions of the violator.
A positive evaluation of the violator should lead to a positive evaluation of the
space violation in such cases and vice versa. What are some of these expectations
for conversational distance, and how do they develop? What factors lead us to
assume certain conversational distances?
Answering these questions is the focus for the remainder of this chapter. Again,
however, we must sort through conflicting results due to variations in research meth-
odology and conceptualization of personal space. Logically, we know that conversa-
tional distance is the product of both interactantsnegotiations. But some research is
based on the behavior of a single person; some does not distinguish between actual
physical distance and perceptions of distance; some measures distance by floor tiles
or space between chair legs and totally ignores the ability of the communicators to
vary the psychological distanceby changes in topic, eye gaze, and body angle;
and most research does not distinguish between initial distance and changes that
take place over the course of a conversation. Because the methods of measuring per-
sonal space vary, we even have to be cautious about results that agree with other
studies. Sometimes people complete questionnaires about preferred distances; some-
times they are asked to approach nonhuman objects, such as coat racks and
life-sized photographs; sometimes people are unknowingly approached at various
distances by others; and sometimes they are asked to arrange miniature dolls, photo-
graphs, or silhouettes as if they were in various communication situations. With
these factors in mind, we selected the following important sources of variation in
conversational distance. They encompass much of what Sommer (2002) called the
best-substantiatedfindings about personal space.
1. Sex
2. Age
3. Cultural and ethnic background
4. Topic or subject matter
5. Setting for the interaction
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6. Physical characteristics
7. Attitudinal and emotional orientation
8. Characteristics of the interpersonal relationship
9. Personality characteristics
SEX
Many studies have looked at sex differences in interpersonal space using all the
methodologies listed earlier. Hall (1984) has summarized this research. In natural-
istic interaction, settings in which people are interacting more or less naturally and
are not aware of being observed, females predominantly choose to interact with
others of either sex more closely than males do, as long as the conversations are
neutral or friendly. When the conversations are threatening or alienating, females
assume a greater conversational distance (Bell, Kline, & Barnard, 1988).
Another way of understanding sex differences in interpersonal distance is to
examine how the other persons sex influences the distance set. (The preceding dis-
cussion applies only to the influence of ones own sex on that distance.) The research
shows very convincingly that people approach females closer than they approach
males, and this remains true no matter what kind of methodology is used. When
the effects for ones own sex and those for the others sex are combined, they show
that femalefemale pairs interact most closely, malemale pairs interact most dis-
tantly, and mixed-sex pairs set intermediate distances. This pattern shows up fre-
quently in research, especially in Anglo-American samples. Several theories have
been put forth to explain these sex differences in conversational distances. One pop-
ular notion is rooted in the different amounts of space children experience. It has
been noted, for example, that the same stimuli may cause parents to put male infants
on the floor or in a playpen but to hug the females or put them in a nearby high
chair. Boys are frequently given toys or balls that seem to encourage activities
demanding more space, often away from the confines of the home itself (e.g., cars,
trains, and a football). Girls, in contrast, may receive dolls, dollhouses, and other
toys that require less space. Some observational studies have confirmed that young
boys at play utilize more space than young girls, but this does not explain those
instances in which women want greater interaction distance. The oppression hypothesis
suggests that women choose a closer interaction distance because people with
less status in society are accorded less space, but Atsuko (2003) did not find evidence
to support this theory. Using social orientation as the basis for explaining the interac-
tion distances chosen by women has the advantage of explaining both closer and
more distant interaction preferences. Women,thesetheoristsargue,aremoresocially
oriented than males, so they should prefer distances that connote warmth, trust,
and friendship. Eagly (1987), using social role theory, believes women play a more
person-oriented and prosocial role in society, which manifests itself in various kinds of
behavior, including interaction distances consistent with that role.
AGE
If distance reflects our general comfort with a person, it seems reasonable to predict
that we would interact more closely to people in our own general age range. The
exceptions, of course, are the very old and very young who, for various reasons,
CHAPTER 5THE EFFECTS OF TERRITORY AND PERSONAL SPACE ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 137
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often elicit interaction at closer quarters. Generally, interaction distance seems to
expand gradually from about age 6 to early adolescence, when adult norms seem
to be reflected (Aiello & Aiello, 1974). Adults are also more likely to hold older
children responsible for understanding adult norms. When 5-year-olds invaded the
personal space of people waiting in line to see a movie, they were received posi-
tively; but when 10-year-olds were the invaders, they were met with negative
responses (Fry & Willis, 1971). Obviously, these reactions are modified by the
communicative context, but these studies do suggest that adults expect the norms
for conversational distance to be learned before the child is 10. Children are able
to decode proxemic meanings before they encode them in their daily interactions,
as is true of many behaviors.
CULTURAL AND ETHNIC BACKGROUND
Volumes of folklore and isolated personal observations suggest that spatial rela-
tionships in other cultures with different needs and norms may produce very differ-
ent distances for interacting.
Infants reared in different cultures learn different proxemic patterns. A group
of Japanese mothers spent more time in close contact with their infants than a com-
parable group of mothers in the United States. Mother, father, and infant in Japan
usually sleep in the same room. In the Nyansongo culture of Kenya, infants are
always in close proximity to a family member, and the infant sleeps in the mothers
arms at night (Caudill & Weinstein, 1972). It is not hard to see how such patterns
provide a different sense of distance when compared to the patterns of children
who are put into a separate room to sleep several times during the day as well as
at night. Hall (1966) used the terms contact and noncontact to distinguish the
behavior of people from different cultural groups. Compared to noncontact cul-
tures, interactants in contact cultures are expected to face one another more
directly, interact more closely with one another, touch one another more, look one
another in the eye more, and speak in a louder voice. In a study by Watson (1970),
contact cultures were Arabs, Latin Americans, and southern Europeans. Noncon-
tact cultures were Asians, Indians, Pakistanis, northern Europeans, and people liv-
ing in the United States. Studies by Watson and others have found support for
these predicted differences, but it is important to remember that these broad cul-
tural norms may or may not manifest themselves in any particular conversation
within a culture (Remland, Jones, & Brinkman, 1991). Whether interactants know
each other, whether they are arguing, whether they are talking to a person of their
same sex, and a host of other factors may sometimes offset these broad cultural
tendencies. For example, Sanders, Hakky, and Brizzolara (1985) found few differ-
ences between the comfortable conversational space of Egyptian and American
males, but Egyptian females were not like their American counterparts. A comfort-
able interaction distance for male friends of the Egyptian women was nearly as dis-
tant as that for male strangers. In another study, close seating of two brothers was
more comfortable to Saudi students than to American students, but when the inter-
actants were a brother and sister, it was the American students who found a com-
fort zone in closer interaction distances (Hewitt & Alqahtani, 2003). Shuters
(1976, 1977) systematic field observations in contact and noncontact cultures
138 PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
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remind us that somewhat different proxemic norms may apply for groups within
the larger culture. He found, for instance, significant differences within the so-
called Latin American cultural group. Costa Ricans interacted more closely than
did Panamanians or Colombians. And contrary to predictions, he found no signifi-
cant differences in interaction distance and touching for women in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, and Venice, Italy. Italian men did not manifest closer interaction posi-
tions or face their interaction partners more directly than German men, but they
did engage in more touching. Variations in proxemic patterns in the United States
have been the subject of several research projects. For example, the question of
whether black Americans interact at closer distances than white Americans has
been studied. Developmental studies show that when entering elementary school,
black children may exhibit closer interaction distances than white children, but by
the fifth grade, these differences are minimized; and by age 16, black Americans
tend to maintain greater conversational distances (Aiello & Thompson, 1980;
Halberstadt, 1985). Obviously, the racial composition of the schools and the socio-
economic class of the students will also play an important role in determining com-
fortable interaction distances. Most studies reveal that interactions involving black
and white communicators occur at greater distances than those involving persons
of the same race. Another large cultural group in the United States, Hispanic
Americans, has also been observed. These studies generally support the prediction
that Hispanic Americans interact at closer distances than do Anglo Americans.
Scherer (1974) contended that any differences between blacks and whites, and pre-
sumably also Hispanic Americans, may be confounded by socioeconomic factors
not attributable to ethnic background. This study found that middle-class children
maintained greater conversational distance than lower-class children, but there
were no differences between middle-class blacks and whites or lower-class blacks
and whites. Because proxemic norms are learned, it is reasonable to assume that
people who grow up in the same neighborhoodno matter what their skin color
or ethnic heritagewill share more expectations for comfortable conversational
distance than those raised in different parts of a city, state, or country.
TOPIC OR SUBJECT MATTER
Erickson (1975) wanted to find out if proxemic shifts forward or backward were
associated with any other events in a conversation. By coding co-occurring behav-
ior, he determined that proxemic shifts may mark important segments of the
encounter, such as beginnings, endings, and topic changes.
Earlier we noted that in his efforts to examine the limits of conversational dis-
tance, Sommer tried to use impersonal topics that would presumably not influence
the distances chosen. For intimates, personal topics may demand less conversa-
tional distance unless other factors, such as an impersonal setting, neutralize such
inclinations. Leipolds (1963) work demonstrates how anticipated treatment of the
same general topic can influence conversational distance. Students entered a room
and were given either a negative comment (Your grade is poor, and you have not
done your best); praise (You are doing very well, and Mr. Leipold wants to talk
to you further); or a neutral comment (Mr. Leipold is interested in your feelings
about the introductory course). Students given the negative comment sat farthest
CHAPTER 5THE EFFECTS OF TERRITORY AND PERSONAL SPACE ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 139
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from the experimenter; those who were praised sat closest. Following insults, peo-
ple may want to assume a greater distance than they normally would with that
person, particularly if the person giving the insult is perceived as a higher-status
person (ONeal, Brunalt, Carifio, Troutwine, & Epstein, 1980). Regardless of
topic, very close distances may result in generally less talking (Schulz & Barefoot,
1974).
SETTING FOR THE INTERACTION
Obviously, the social setting makes a great deal of difference in how far we stand
from others in conversation. A crowded cocktail party demands a different distance
than a comfortable evening in the living room with a spouse or significant other.
Lighting, temperature, noise, and available space affect interaction distance. Some
authors have hypothesized that as room size increases, people tend to sit closer
together. Noisy urban street locations outside an office building may prompt peo-
ple to stand closer to one another than they do when conversing inside the build-
ing. And if the setting is perceived as formal or unfamiliar, we would predict
greater distances from unknown others and closer distances to known others.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
Height seems to make a difference in the distance people select for interacting. Irre-
spective of sex, shorter individuals seem to invite smaller interpersonal distances
than taller individuals (Caplan & Goldman, 1981). When the two communicators
are vastly different in height, the distance has to be adjusted so faces can be seen.
Evidence also indicates that obese people are accorded greater interaction distances
(Lerner, Venning, & Knapp, 1975).
Studies by Kleck (1969) and Kleck and Strenta (1985) showed that people
interacting with stigmatized individuals (a left-leg amputation was simulated with
a special wheelchair) choose greater initial speaking distances than with nonstigma-
tized persons, but that this distance decreases as the length of the interaction
increases. Similar results have been found for perceived epileptics and people with
facial disfigurations such as scars and port-wine stains. Kleck points out that when
people with physical disabilities expect others to behave in a distant manner, they
may prepare themselves for such reactions and thereby increase the chances it will
happen.
ATTITUDINAL AND EMOTIONAL ORIENTATION
Some experiments have been conducted by telling a person that he or she was
going to interact with a person who was either warm and friendlyor
unfriendly.Not surprisingly, greater distances were chosen when interacting
with a person perceived to be unfriendly. Similarly, when told to enter into conver-
sation with another person and to behave in a friendly way, people chose closer
distances than when told to let him/her know you arent friendly.This friendly/
unfriendly relationship to distance seems to manifest itself even with preschool chil-
dren (King, 1966). In some instances, our anger will cause us to withdraw from
140 PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
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others, but if we seek retaliation, we may increase proximity (Meisels & Dosey,
1971).
Variations in our emotional states, such as depression, fatigue, excitement, or
joy, can sometimes make vast differences in how close or far away we want to be
from others. The traumatic experiences of abused children probably explain why
they assumed significantly greater conversational distances than their nonabused
peers in one study (Vranic, 2003). This was true for males and females and was
exacerbated by frontal approaches by males. A study reported by Patterson (1968)
indicates that we may make a variety of interpersonal judgments about others
based on distance. People were told to interview others and secretly rate them on
traits of friendliness, aggressiveness, dominance, extraversion, and intelligence. The
interviewees were actually confederates who approached the interviewers at differ-
ent distances and gave standard answers to the questions asked. The mean ratings
for all the traits at four different distances were tabulated, and they revealed that
the most distant position yielded significantly lower, less favorable ratings. So bar-
ring any contradictory information, people choosing closer distances are often seen
as warmer, more likeable, more empathic, and more understanding. When we seek
to win anothers approval, we reduce conversational distance as opposed to
instances when we are deliberately trying to avoid approval. Females seeking
approval maintained a mean distance of 57 inches; those trying to avoid approval
averaged 94 inches. When the distance was held constant at 5 feet, approval-
seekers compensated by smiling more and engaging in more gestural activity
(Rosenfeld, 1965, 1966).
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIP
A number of studies also show that conversational distance varies as a function of
our relationship with the other person. Strangers begin conversations at a greater
distance than acquaintances, and acquaintances are a bit more distant than friends.
In a study of 108 married couples, husbands were asked to walk toward their
wives and stop when they got to a comfortable conversational distance. The more
dissatisfied the husbands were with their marriage, the greater the distance they
chose (Crane, Dollahite, Griffin, & Taylor, 1987). Preschoolers seem to be able to
use distance as a criterion for determining liking or disliking. Like adults, children
seem to maintain greater distances with unknown adults, unfriendly or threatening
persons, teachers, and endomorphs (i.e., those with a heavyset body type).
These and other studies suggest that closer relationships are likely to be associ-
ated with closer interaction distances. Obviously, there is a point at which we
would not expect interactants to get any closer, no matter how close their relation-
ship. And even people who are very close will not always interact at close distances
due to the ebb and flow of their relationship.
PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS
Much has been written about the influence of introversion and extraversion on
spatial relationships. It is difficult to draw any firm conclusions, but the bulk of
the evidence seems to indicate that introverts tend to stand farther away than
CHAPTER 5THE EFFECTS OF TERRITORY AND PERSONAL SPACE ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 141
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extroverts and to generally prefer greater interpersonal distances. Other studies
suggest that anxiety-prone individuals maintain greater distances, but closer dis-
tances are seen when people have a high self-concept and affiliative needs or when
they are low on authoritarianism, high on interdependence, and self-directed.
People with various personality abnormalities can probably be counted on to
show greater non-normative spatial behavior, choosing interactive distances both
too far away and too close.
In addition to studying human spatial behavior in high-density situations and
in conversation, some researchers have examined such questions in the context of
small groups, particularly in regard to seating patterns.
SEATING BEHAVIOR AND SPATIAL ARRANGEMENTS IN SMALL GROUPS
People will select a place to sit on a long-term basis, such as returning to the same
seat again and again in a course they are taking in college, or on a short-term basis,
such as when they go to a movie theatre. Regarding the long term, as you might
have guessed from your own behavior, college students tend to prefer a particular
seat in a classroom and experience greater feelings of comfort, confidence, and
being in control when they are able to return to it (Avni-Babad, 2011). Okubo
(2010) wanted to explore whether short-term sitting preferences among partici-
pants varied as a function of handedness. Right-handed participants (but not
mixed-handed or left-handed participants) tended to prefer seats in the movie the-
atre that were to the right of the screen, but only when they were motivated to see
the movie.
Interest in seating arrangements extends beyond the academic world to real-
world settings, including medicine, business, and education (Li & Robertson, 2011;
Robson, Kimes, Becker, & Evans, 2011; van den Berg, Segers, & Cillessen, 2012).
For example, owners of restaurants probably do not want their patrons to sit at
tables that are too close to other tables when they know that these people want to
have a romantic night out (Robson et al., 2011). On the other hand, educators
might consider having grade-school children who do not get along sit closer to each
other in the classroom, as this may promote liking and lead to fewer problems
related to victimization (van den Berg et al., 2012).
The specific body of work dealing with seating behavior and spatial arrange-
ments in small groups is known as small group ecology. What is clear from this
research is that our seating behavior is not generally accidental or random. Expla-
nations for why we select a particular seat in relation to the other person or per-
sons vary according to the task at hand, the degree of relationship between the
interactants, the personalities of the two parties, and the amount and kind of
space available. We can summarize the findings about seating behavior and spatial
positioning under the following categories:
Leadership
Dominance
Task
Sex and acquaintance
Introversionextraversion
142 PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
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LEADERSHIP
It seems to be a norm, in the United States at least, that leaders are expected to be
found at the head or foot of the table. In households in which the husband is con-
sidered the head of the household, he is likely to be found sitting at one end of a
rectangular dinner table. Elected group leaders generally put themselves in the
head positions at rectangular tables, and the other group members try to position
themselves so they can see the leader. In mock jury deliberations, the man seated
on the end position is more likely to be chosen as the leader. The reaction to
women who are positioned at the head of a table of men and women has, in the
past, been less consistently linked to the leadership role (Porter & Geis, 1981). As
long as the group consisted of all women, the one at the head of the table was per-
ceived as the leader. With the recent growth of women in positions of leadership in
business and government, we would expect women seated at the end position in
groups of men and women to be more consistently chosen as the leader, too.
Howells and Becker (1962) added further support to the idea that a persons
position in a group is an important factor in leadership emergence. They reasoned
that spatial position determines the flow of communication, which in turn deter-
mines leadership emergence. Five-person decision-making groups were examined:
Three people sat on one side of a rectangular table, and two sat on the other side.
Because previous work suggested that communication usually flows across the
table rather than around it, the researchers predicted that the side with two people
would be able to influence the most people, or at least talk more, and therefore
emerge more often as group leaders. This hypothesis was confirmed. An experi-
ment by Ward (1968) helps unravel how seating position can create leaders. Col-
lege males were assigned at random to sit in particular seats at a round table. The
experimenters arranged it so that more people were seated around one half of the
table than the other; only two people sat at the less populated end, and these two
seats were considered visually central because their occupants would receive more
undivided gaze from people at the other, more densely occupied end. As predicted,
occupants of these visually central seats received higher ratings of leadership after
discussions had taken place. But were they really leaders or just perceived to be?
Other research (Taylor & Fiske, 1975) does indicate that the person on whom atten-
tion is centered will appear to be an initiator and a person causally responsible for
the course of the conversation. But in Wards study, evidence indicated that those
who were visually central actually behaved differently: They talked more. It would
be interesting to unravel further the complex routes by which seating position might
affect leadership. For example, does the visually central person think, Iminacen-
tral position; Id better start acting like a leader? Or do the attention and subtle
cues of the other members of the group trigger leadership behaviors, perhaps without
the visually central person even realizing it? People seem well aware of the different
perceptions and communicative potentials associated with different seating positions.
When people were asked to select seats to convey different impressions, they chose
end positions to convey leadership or dominance; positions with the closest distances
to convey interpersonal attraction; and seats that afforded the greatest interpersonal
distance, and the least visual accessibility vis-à-vis the end positions, to indicate they
did not wish to participate (Reiss & Rosenfeld, 1980).
CHAPTER 5THE EFFECTS OF TERRITORY AND PERSONAL SPACE ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 143
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DOMINANCE
The end positions also seem to carry a status or dominance factor. Russo (1967)
found that people rating various seating arrangements on an equalitydimension
stated that one person seated at the head and one on the side indicated more unequal
status than if they were seated side by side or both on the ends. In an analysis of
talking frequency in small groups, Hare and Bales (1963) noted that people in posi-
tions 1, 3, and 5 (see figure) were frequent talkers. Subsequent studies revealed that
these people were likely to be dominant personalities, whereas those who avoided
the central or focal positions by choosing seats 2 and 4 were more anxious and
actually stated they wanted to stay out of the discussion. These self-selection effects
demonstrate the importance of conducting randomized studies, such as Wards
(1968) study mentioned earlier. We do not know whether the communication of non-
dominant persons placed in focal positions would radically change their behavior.
Positions 1, 3, and 5 also were considered positions of leadership, but leader-
ship of different types, depending on the position. The two end positions, positions
1 and 5, attracted task-oriented leaders, whereas the middle positions attracted
socioemotional leaders, those concerned about group relationships and getting
everyone to participate.
TASK
The tasks performed in a courtroom are especially important to a defendant, particu-
larly the testimony of witnesses against him or her. In 2006, the two primary defendants
in the collapse of the Enron Corporation, Skilling and Lay, petitioned the court to give
them the ability to face their accusers by moving them from a table that obstructed their
view of the witnesses. By law, defendants have a right to face their accusers, a condition
that presumably has a positive effect on truthtelling.Seatingpreferencesofstudents
and nonstudents engaged in the accomplishment of different tasks have also been stud-
ied (Cook, 1970; Sommer, 1969). In each case, people were asked to imagine sitting at
atablewithasame-sexfriendineachofthefollowingfoursituations:
1. Conversation. Sitting and chatting for a few minutes before class, or before
work for nonstudents
2. Cooperation. Sitting and studying together for the same exam, or sitting doing
a crossword together, or some similar activity for nonstudents
3. Coaction. Sitting studying for different exams, or sitting at the same table
reading for nonstudents
4. Competition. Competing to see who will be the first to solve a series of puzzles
Each person was shown a round table and a rectangular table. Each table had six
chairs. The combined results for all the groups surveyed in these two studies are
presented in Table 5-1 for rectangular tables and Table 5-2 for circular tables.
There are many similarities among the different groups concerning their order of
preference. Conversations before class or work involved primarily corner or short
opposite seating at rectangular tables and side-by-side seating at round tables. Coop-
eration seems to elicit a preponderance of side-by-side choices. Coactionthat is,
studying for different exams or reading at the same tablenecessitated plenty
of room between the participants, and the most distant seating positions were
generally selected. Most participants wanted to compete in an opposite seating
144 PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
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arrangement. However, some students wanted to establish a closer opposite rela-
tionship; apparently this would afford them an opportunity to see how the other
person was progressing and would also allow them to use various gestures, body
movements, and eye contact to upset their opponents. The more distant opposite
position would presumably prevent less spying.
SEX AND ACQUAINTANCE
The nature of a relationship may make a difference in spatial orientation and hence
in seating selection. Cook (1970) conducted a questionnaire study and obtained
some observational data of people interacting in a restaurant and several bars.
People in the questionnaire study were asked to select seating arrangements in the
following situations:
Sitting with a casual friend of the same sex
Sitting with a casual friend of the opposite sex
Sitting with a boyfriend or girlfriend
The predominant seating pattern, as stated by questionnaire respondents using
a bar as a referent, was corner seating x
xfor the same-sex friends and casual
friends of the opposite sex. However, intimate friends appear to require side-
by-side seating xx . In a restaurant, both nonintimate relationship categories
selected predominantly opposite seating
x
x
, but as intimacy increased, other types
of seating became more acceptable. Some very practical reasons may be
TABLE 5-1 SEATING PREFERENCES AT RECTANGULAR TABLES
x
x
x
x
xx
xx
x
x
x
x
Conversation 45% 36% 12% 1% 4% 2%
Cooperation 23 13 42 8 10 4
Coaction 8 8 10 21 34 19
Competition 6 22 7 40 19 6
TABLE 5-2 SEATING PREFERENCES AT ROUND TABLES
x
xx
x
x
x
Conversation 60% 27% 13%
Cooperation 68 13 19
Coaction 18 32 50
Competition 12 23 65
Source: (Tables 5-1 and 5-2) From Experiments in orientation and proxemicsby M. Cook, Human Relations
Vol. 23, pp. 6176. Copyright © 1970, The Tavistock Institute. Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications.
CHAPTER 5THE EFFECTS OF TERRITORY AND PERSONAL SPACE ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 145
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offered for opposite seating in restaurants. For instance, other patrons will not have
to sit opposite you, which might create some uncomfortable situations with respect
to eye contact and overheard conversation. In addition, you will not poke the other
person with your elbow while eating. Actual observations of seating in a restaurant,
presented in Table 5-3, seem to validate the questionnaire responses. Most people do
select opposite seating in restaurants. However, the observations of people sitting
in bars do not agree with the questionnaire study of seating preferences in bars (see
Table 5-4). Although questionnaire preferences favored corner seating, actual obser-
vations show a marked preference for side-by-side seating. Cook suggests this may
have been because the bars he studied were equipped with many seats located against
TABLE 5-3 OBSERVATIONS OF SEATING BEHAVIOR IN A RESTAURANT
x
x
xx x
x
Two males 6 0 0
Two females 6 0 1
Male with female 36 7 1
Total 48 7 2
TABLE 5-4 OBSERVATIONS OF SEATING BEHAVIOR IN THREE BARS
x
x
x
x
xx
Bar A
Two males 7 8 13
Male with female 6 4 21
Total 13 12 34
Bar B
Two males 1 0 9
Male with female 4 3 20
Total 5 3 29
Bar C
Two males 0 11 7
Male with female 1 4 10
Total 1 15 17
Overall
Two males 8 19 29
Male with female 11 11 51
Total 19 30 80
Source: (Tables 5-3 and 5-4) From Experiments in orientation and proxemicsby M. Cook, Human Relations
Vol. 23, pp. 6176. Copyright © 1970, The Tavistock Institute. Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications.
146 PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
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the wall. Supposedly this allowed persons to sit side by side, not have their backs to
anyone, and have a good view of the other patrons. Thus, paper-and-pencil prefer-
ences were overruled by environmental factors. Nevertheless, this study allows us to
conclude that the personssexandhisorheracquaintancewiththeotherpersondo
have an effect on his or her actual and preferred seating position.
INTROVERSIONEXTRAVERSION
We have already discussed the possible influence of introversion and extraversion
on conversational distance. Some evidence indicates that this personality variable
also affects seating preferences. Extraverts are likely to choose to sit opposite of
others, either across the table or down the length of it, and disregard positions
that would put them at an angle to another person. Extraverts may also choose
positions that would put them in close physical proximity to another person. Intro-
verts generally choose positions that would keep them more at a distance, visually
and physically, from others.
CONCLUSION
Adiscussionoftheshapeofthenegotiatingtableatthe1968Parispeacetalksthat
attempted to end the Vietnam War is a most appropriate way to conclude this
chapter. It incorporates elements of territoriality and seating arrangements that
FIGURE 5-5
Proposals for a table to be used at the Paris peace talks, 1968.
Source: From Mccroskey & Larson. An Introduction to Interpersonal Communication, 1st Edition, © 1971. Reprinted
by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ.
CHAPTER 5THE EFFECTS OF TERRITORY AND PERSONAL SPACE ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 147
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are influenced by culture, attitudes, leadership perceptions, and the type of task
undertaken. It took negotiators 8 months just to reach an agreement on the shape of
the table. The diagrams in Figure 5-5 mark the chronology of the seating proposals.
The United States (U.S.) and South Vietnam (S.V.) wanted a seating arrangement in
which only two sides were identified. They did not want to recognize the National Lib-
eration Front (NLF) as an equal party in the negotiations. North Vietnam (N.V.) and
the NLF wanted equal status given to all parties, represented by a four-sided table. The
final arrangement was such that both parties could claim victory.The round table
minus the dividing lines allowed North Vietnam and NLF to claim all four delegations
were equal. The existence of the two secretarial tables (interpreted as dividers), the lack
of identifying symbols on the table, and an AA, BB speaking rotation permitted the
United States and South Vietnam to claim victory for the two-sided approach. Consid-
ering the lives lost during the 8 months needed to arrive at the seating arrangement, we
must certainly conclude that proximity and territoriality are far from trivial concerns in
some human encounters. (McCroskey, Larson, & Knapp, 1971, p. 98)
SUMMARY
Our perceptions and use of space contribute
extensively to the various communication out-
comes we seek. Some of our spatial behavior is
related to a need to stake out and maintain terri-
tory, and territorial behavior can be helpful in
regulating social interaction and controlling den-
sity; it can also be the source of conflict when
territory is disputed or encroached upon without
permission. We identified three different types of
territoriesprimary,secondary, and publicand
several different levels at which territorial behav-
ior exists: individual,group,community, and
nation. Although we often think people vigor-
ously defend their territory, the type of defense
depends very much on who the intruder is, why
the intrusion is taking place, what type of
territory is being intruded upon, what type
of intrusion occursviolation,invasion,or
contaminationhow long the intrusion takes,
and where it occurs. We often try to prevent peo-
ple from moving into our territory by marking it
as ours.This can be achieved by our physical
presence, the presence of a friend who agrees to
watch our territory, or by using markersfences,
coats, and the likeor a special kind of lan-
guage. When someone does invade another per-
sons territory, we sometimes find the owners
physiological arousal increased, and various
defensive maneuvers may be used, such as flight,
hostile looks, turning or leaning away, blocking
advances with objects or hands and arms, and
verbal behavior. Just as people do not like others
to invade their territory, we also find they are
reluctant to invade the territory of others, often
apologizing when it cannot be prevented.
We examined density and crowding in both
animal and human interaction. Some animal
studies showed undesirable effects from overpop-
ulation. High-density human situations, how-
ever, are not always disruptive; sometimes we
want the company of many people. The best pre-
dictor of individually stressful and socially unde-
sirable outcomes seems to be the number of
people per room rather than other density mea-
sures. When people do feel the stress of a
crowded situation, they seek ways to cope with
it. We also distinguished between density, or the
number of people per unit of space, and crowd-
ing, a feeling brought on by the environment,
personal, or social factors. Our examination of
spatial behavior in conversations revealed many
ways of conceptualizing and measuring this
behavior. As a result, some generalizations
about conversational space remain tentative.
We do know that each of us seeks a comfortable
conversational distance that varies depending
on age, sex, cultural and ethnic background,
setting, attitudes, emotions, topics, physical
148 PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
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characteristics, personality, and our relationship
with the other person. We also know that con-
versational distance changes during the course of
a conversation. Finally, we discussed seating
arrangements in small groups. Distances and
seats chosen do not seem to be accidental.
Leaders and dominant personalities tend to
choose specific seats, but seating position also
can determine a persons role in a group. Seating
also varies with the topic at hand, the nature of
the relationships among the parties, and certain
personality variables.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Identify a secondary territory you have experi-
enced in which ownership was disputed. Dis-
cuss what happened, why it happened, and
how the conflict could have been prevented.
2. What factors are likely to cause a person
who comes to the United States from another
culture, with different norms for conversa-
tional space, to maintain the norms from
his or her culture of origin? What factors
are likely to cause an immigrant to manifest
conversational space that is more typical of
the United States?
3. When is a womans purse likely to be per-
ceived as a primary territory? When can it
become a secondary territory?
4. Do you think the findings associated with
leadership, dominance, and seating behavior
apply to females as well as males? Why or
why not?
5. The next time you are walking with two
other people, note the spatial arrangement
of the group. Does this pattern change
when the age, status, or gender composition
of the group changes?
CHAPTER 5THE EFFECTS OF TERRITORY AND PERSONAL SPACE ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION 149
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